Youth urged to embrace farming

The Katikkiro (Prime Minister) of Buganda Kingdom Charles Peter Mayiga has urged farmers to embrace new scientific and research-based approaches, saying is the only way to increase productivity.

He made the remark while touring the four institutes of the National Agricultural Research Organisation (Naro), where he expressed admiration at the collection of advanced research products.

Agreement

The most farming activities in the country are done by small scale farmers with the mindset of practicing farming both for commercial and home-based use.

However experts in the agriculture sector think this is not the right practice especially among farmers who are youths. The advice is therefore for farmers to separate farming for home use from farming as business. In a project implemented in the West Nile region where experts trained the youth in various farming initiatives as business in selected products namely growing tomatoes, passion fruits, onions and rearing of local chicken, the team developed a guide for farmers to follow in business farming.

Background

The four year initiative was implemented by experts from Agency for Accelerated Regional Development (AFARD) in partnership with centre for governance and Economic Development with funding from European Union.

The main objective of the project was to improve the employability of 2,500 rural youth organised in 125 youth-led village savings groups which comprised 900 from 45 groups in Nebbi, 800 in 40 groups in Arua, and 800 in 40 groups in Zombo District.

The purpose was to promote access to gainful employment opportunities for 2,500 rural youths through agribusiness, microenterprises, micro-franchise, and formal jobs.

The youth were trained in producing agricultural products which can be turned into commercial products by adding value to the same. Details of how the youths can practice agriculture as a business have been outlined in the guide as below.

Farming as a business

The guide is aimed at overall setting a systematic approach for the targeted youth and their facilitators to follow in adopting and promoting this transformation into farming as a business so that the process of igniting and enduring change is organised.

The youth were sensitised about the need to have the right attitude, knowledge, and skills to select the right agro-enterprise for their poverty reduction after agro-enterprise analysis.

They should plan their enterprise production and marketing in a market-oriented manner as well as use good agricultural practices required to increase their production and productivity.

Collectively and competitively market their produce in better markets and review their performance and plan every season with goal-driven and profit orientation.

Activities

The youth were trained about step by step activities which involved farming enterprise selection. This meant the groups and individuals to select the products out of the selected enterprise such as onion farming, tomato farming and local chicken rearing.

The groups were trained on production and marketing planning and good agricultural practices. The youth were also trained on carry out performance review and planning. The experts introduced the youth to critical agribusiness performance indicators that they need to continue tracking to be sure that their selected agribusiness item are worthwhile.

Subsistence and business minded farming

The youth were given life examples of two farmers Ms Helen Angcia a 30-year-old practicing farming in the outskirts of Arua City.

She is married with three children growing annually beans, groundnuts, maize, soya beans, and cassava and also rears some five chicken on a three acre land.

She has been doing it for the last 15 years yet her quality of life has not improved at all. Her children hardly go to school because of lack of scholastic materials. She only relies on local herbs when any of her family member is sick.

Their clothing and housing unit are not good at all because she has no savings to help her in case of any trouble.

On the other hand Ms Mariam Obedi from Zombo is a widow with 6 children living a better life. She uses farming as a business approach and focuses on growing coffee and banana with beans as an intercrop and keeping only three pigs every year. She earns income every market day from banana and has three peak income seasons from coffee.

As a result, she has a permanent house, decent clothing, and cash savings both in the local Sacco and village saving group where she is a member. All her children study in private schools and when any member of her family is sick they go a hospital for treatment. The youth were encouraged to adopt the modal of the farmer in Zombo District.

Types of farming practices

In the guide experts describe the major types of farming practices as subsistence farming: which they say is a low-input, low-risk and low return farming practice where farmers use indigenous knowledge and technologies.

This leads to low yields per unit of production and the harvest is mainly for food consumption. Farmers usually sell small surplus yield for income Commercial farming is the opposite of subsistence farming. It is high-inputs, high-risk and high return farming practice where farmers are profit-oriented.

They focus on large-scale production owning large land sizes which can be used for crop that can fetch good sales. The farmers uses advanced technologies and innovations than human labour. They target good markets to achieve high profits. They practice farming a business which the youth are urged to adopt. The farmers practicing this type of business usually take on one or two farm enterprise which they concentrate.