Agroecological practices boosts farmers’ incomes - experts

Agroecology could be the only way Uganda can be saved from the nightmares of hunger and climate change in adition to bosting people’s welfare and wellbeing, agricultural experts have said

Agroecology could be the only way Uganda can be saved from the nightmares of hunger and climate change in addition to bosting people’s welfare and wellbeing, agricultural experts have said.
According to Mr Ronald Bagaga, an environmentalist and research programme officer at Eastern and Southern Africa Small Scale Farmers Forum (ESAFF), Uganda food security and food sovereignty are interrelated and can only be realized through the localization of the agroecology system of production.
He noted that it is people’s right to access healthy and culturally appropriate food produced through ecologically sound and sustainable methods that can enable them to earn more income from their agricultural produce.

“Agroecology can resolve hunger sustainably, address problems and limitations of industrial agriculture such as increased poverty and malnutrition rate, inequality and environmental degradation, particularly climate change; that hinder hunger and poverty eradication,” Bagaga said.
He added that agroecology raises availability of food by augmenting yields considerably and increasing urban agriculture, accessibility of food by decreasing poverty and improves the appropriateness of food by offering food which is of high-quality nutritional, healthy and socially accepted or adopted.

“Agro-ecology contributes to conserving biodiversity and natural resources, in increasing resilience to climate change and mitigating challenges in growing control of peasants upon agricultural and food systems, and in empowering Women as well,” he explained.
The proprietor of Kwagala Mixed Farm, Prof Diana Nambatya, argues that an urban farmer can use the available resources to practice value addition; for instance using waste from livestock to process organic fertilisers.
“I realized that the poorest of the poor live in rural Uganda mostly engaged in subsistence agriculture with limited good agricultural skills and no access to farm inputs like fertilisers,” she recounts.
Following her visit to Luwero and Kiboga in her quest to fight hunger, she discovered how farmers were grappling with depleted soils and unreliable rains; which implies that they were producing, eating and putting less onto the market.

 This she says was the beginning of her journey to rejuvenate, boost the production and increase market for produce to help the most vulnerable rural farmers that were mostly affected.
“This could only be made possible by the use of organic fertilizer made from traditional African herbs and materials that are locally sourced which are also easy to apply which the famers have ably embraced,” she notes.
In addition, this is an important factor in the low income and semi –literate settings that are often uncertain about fertilizers.  

An agronomist and executive director of Slow Food Uganda, Mr Eddie Mukiibi, said that the dependence on synthetic chemicals not only generates a breeding environment for new pests and highly resistant pests but also eliminates natural enemies to animal and crop pests hence making local agriculture difficult.
He however, notes that with natural systems, we can build a resilient system of flourishing natural enemies such as pests and diseases due to diversity.
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