Farmers pick new skills from Farm Clinic

A cool breeze wafted from Mbarara City to MbaZARDI grounds where Seeds of Gold held its 31st edition of the Farm Clinic last Saturday.

The event started a few minutes after 8am and in attendance were hundreds of farmers, students and farming enthusiasts who started to stream at the venue as early as 7am braving the morning chill.

Some came from Ibanda, others Ntugamo, Rwampara, Bushenyi, Sembabule, and Masaka and of course from Mbarara City all eager to learn and interact with the experts. Ready to train the farmers were experts from Naro, banks and farm input stores.

Training 
The questions from the farmers to experts where varied. Jude Musinguzi, a farmer from Rwampara strode into Rainbow AgroScience Company Limited accompanied by his wife and other farm workers. 

The workers carried a bag containing an assortment of twigs, branches, plant roots and diseased leaves. “I farm coffee, bananas and I also have a fish pond. However pests and diseases plus other predators are setting me back. What should I do?” he asked Julius Ahagaana an agronomist with Rainbow AgroScience Company Limited.

Control 
After a brief examination, Musinguzi was told both his coffee and banana plantations where under attack from various pests and diseases.

Ahagaana told him the pests and diseases on his farm included aphids, white mealybugs, root-knot nematodes and coffee wilt disease.

Besides use of pesticides, Musinguzi was advised to use crop rotation, cut and burn diseased plants, use jik to clean and sanitise his tools such as panga and hand hoes.  

Charity Birungi from Ibanda asked why her banana plantation was giving small bunches despite following proper agronomy as advised by district extension service workers.

Birungi was told she was not observing the best agronomy such as mulching and observing hygiene on her farm.

Dickson Murangira a livestock farmer from Mbarara was at a loss that his dairy cow had shown signs of heat months after he was sure it was in-calf.

“For more than four months, I thought my cow had conceived, then early last month, I was shocked to realise she was on heat again,” he said. 

Murangira was told that the cow may have ‘aborted’ or lost the foetus before development which is always caused by heat stress, toxic agents, severe trauma, diseases such as bovine viral diarrhea and an abrupt change in the cow’s feeding and nutritional habits among others.

The factors according to the livestock expert can cause early embryonic death, still births and mummified calves.

Insemination Artificial insemination was a hot topic at the event with farmers such as Robert Mulefu from Bushenyi seeking to know where he can get the services. 

Halid Kirunda the director of MbaZARDI said the services was available and that one could access them from some specified farms especially the National Animal Genetic Resources Centre and Data Bank. 

Kirunda said the event had offered the institution especially his staff an opportunity to offer their knowledge and expertise to the larger community. He promised that he would not hesitate to host the event again next year.  

Elizabeth Namaganda the NMG-Uganda head of marketing said the Farm Clinics continue to show farmers’ growing quest for information. “Engagement between farmers and experts has become more intense with the former saying they are now farming from a point of information,” said Namaganda.

key fact
“Engagement between farmers and the experts has become more intense with the former now saying they are farming from a point of information. It affirms our commitment to scale the clinics to every county in the country,”   says Elizabeth Namaganda the NMG-Uganda head of marketing.