Bushenyi youth simplify farming for part-timers

Are you one of the town dwellers or full time employees who claim to have no time for agriculture? Perhaps you haven’t heard about Kegra youths who earn from looking after gardens. The youth have simplified agriculture for town dwellers, business community and full time employees.

As the country grapples with unemployment for both skilled and unskilled youth, Bushenyi youth under the Keirere Green Africa Agency (Kegra) make their ends meet from offering door to door garden services.

The genesis
The group’s manager, Mr Benson Tukundane, says they conceived the idea in 2013. At the time Mr Tukundane and his colleague, Ms Macklean Atukuuma had been employed at different organisations where they worked as office administrators.

“I was working a lot but earning peanuts. My friends, especially those who were on streets searching for jobs, thought I was earning big. They used to admire me. I called them and we deliberated on different business prospects,” Mr Tukundane says.

Tukundane, Atukuuma, Emmanuel Kweyunga, Esther Nabasa and Barbrah Gomushabe convened a meeting where they reflected on different enterprises, among them was starting a piggery farm, growing tomatoes, and vegetables.
To achieve any of these, they needed capital which they could not raise at the moment. It was then that they agreed to start by offering gardens services to other people.
“When we all agreed on the idea, we raised about Shs300,000 that we used to buy pruning scissors, hoes and machetes,” Mr Tukundane says.

Mr Kweyunga says they started with pruning coffee and banana plantations charging only Shs800 and Shs500 per tree respectively.

By the end of 2014, the group had gone into spraying and weeding as a way of increasing their earning. Using their profits, they bought four spray pumps under the Usaid Feed The Future Crop Production and Marketing Activity (CPM) cost sharing basis. This helped them get four extra electric pumps which have greatly simplified their work.
“We are grateful for CPM because they helped us get electric pumps which wasn’t our dream at the moment. We are now reaching very many areas because electric pumps simplify the work compared to manual pumps,” Ms Nabasa says.

Growth
Two years down road, the group that started with less than 10 members has grown to 25. The members offer service in the whole of Bushenyi District and neighbouring districts such as Sheema, Rubirizi, Mbarara and Mitooma.
Kegra has administrators who bargain and receive the money that is shared at the end of the month. Each member earns Shs7,000 per day totaling to approximately Shs200,000 per month.

The group propagates, weeds, prunes and sprays on behalf of entrusted clients. The group’s clients include Amb Franklyn Katungwe, Uganda’s envoy to Belgium and Ms Meron Ampaire an accountant in Bushenyi Town.
“We meet our clients and we agree on what they want in their gardens. We use agro-chemicals for weeding and managing pests and diseases,” Mr Kweyunga says.

Ms Ampaire applauds the youth for being honest and hardworking, saying these are the reasons why many farmers are yearning for their services. “I like those youth because they are honest. They look after the gardens as you have instructed them. They make sure their work is good and I have not been disappointed by their work,” she says.

Achievements
From the members’ savings, the youth have started up a Sacco that gives advances to members who want to start up other income generating projects.

In addition, they have started a piggery farm and nursery beds for cash crops, especially coffee and tea which they sell to other farmers in the Ankole sub-region

“We are able to supply coffee and tea seedlings to all districts in the Ankole sub-region. We have a variety of seedlings in our nursery beds. We also supply piglets to many farmers in this region,” Mr Kweyunga boasts of their achievements.

Other income generating activities the youth have ventured into is selling and hiring out agro-inputs such as spray chemicals, fertilisers and tarpaulins. To interest other youth into agriculture, the members conduct sensitisation programmes in the different villages.
Besides, they have started annual youth workshops that they hold in August and September every year. The participants are usually taught good agriculture practices and how to start and run income generating enterprises.
“Fighting unemployment is a collaborative effort. We are determined to help our fellow youth to stop wasting their time, money and energy in gambling. That is why we conduct village talks and workshops,” another member, Ms Gomushabe, stresses.

Challenges
However, Kegra’s success story is not without challenges. Some of the major challenges are lack of a tractor to ease their cultivation services. They also have unreliable suppliers of input.

“Our clientele is increasing every day. We need a tractor that can ease our garden services. We currently major in pruning, spraying and weeding because we cannot take on assignments like cultivation,” says Ms Atukuuma.
Other challenges are farmers who take long to clear payment of their balances when work is completed. This hampers Kegra’s business since they need money to stock new inputs, especially fertilisers and chemicals.
Kegra hopes to venture into coffee and grain bulking and exporting. They believe this will enable them increase their income base and bring more youth on board.

Unemployment figures

The 2014 National Housing and Population Census report by Uganda National Bureau of Statistics (UBOS) shows Uganda has a population of 34.6 million people.

UBOS report indicates out of the more than 15.5 million national labour force aged 14-64 years, 269, 000 are jobless and over 1.4 million people are underemployed.

Speaking at a high level dialogue on the role of private sector on the delivery of sustainable development goals last week, Mr Matia Kasaija, the Finance minister, said government only employs 300,000 yet universities and other higher institutions of learning pass out nearly 500,000 graduates every year.