Youths tipped on group farming

The chief administrative officer of UNYFA, Mr Denis Kanbiito, while explaining the International Young Farmers exchange programme, noted that it was established in 2019 with funding from the Germany Federal Ministry of Economic Cooperation and Development.

Amid rising youth unemployment in Uganda, it is evident that the youth engagement in agriculture is declining.

It is likely that this will have implications on food security and could undermine efforts to drive economic growth through agriculture.

Most initiatives to engage the youth embrace farming as employment alternative is geared towards engaging them in agribusiness by embracing value addition. 

This is the same initiative the Young Farmers Federation of Uganda (UNFYA) is doing boing youths and youth groups to venture in agriculture initiatives in order to earn income.

As such UNFYA has teamed up with the Germany Farmers Federation to conduct exchange programme with selected youth farmers who go to Germany in different farms to learn and experience farming initiatives and with lessons drawn they come and implement the same on the their farms here in Uganda.

Project

The chief administrative officer UNYFA Mr Denis Kanbiito explaining about the International Young Farmers exchange programme noted that it was established in 2019 with funding from the Germany Federal Ministry of Economic Cooperation and Development.

It is implemented by Schorlemer Stiftung of the Germany Farmers Association, Andreas Mernes Akademie a Germany young farmer’s academy and UNFYA to empower young farmers to embrace farming as a business.

So far 110 young Ugandan farmers have benefited from the exchange programme and 58 young Germany farmers have come to Uganda to learn lesson from Ugandan farms here.

TThe youths have been trained on personality business attitude, market research, preparation of business plan, budgeting and business pitching all related to agricultural activities.

Youth farmer pitches

Ento Organic U (Ltd) processing organic fertiliser from agricultural waste. This is an organisation belonging to a team of eight youths adding value to agriculture waste by processing the same into organic fertiliser.

The leader Martin Tenywa explained that in Kampala alone about 3,500 metric tonnes of waste is produced which is a challenge to the environment because in most cases the waste is piled in drainages thereby causing spillover of water into communities in the city.

He noted that the agriculture sector is faced with the challenge of fertiliser because most of it is imported and cost is high for small holder farmers.

Having completed a course in agriculture in Bukalasa Agricultural College in 2020, he got in touch with a team of Agricultural Scientists at Makerere University. He was given space to contact research at Makerere University Agricultural Research Institute Kabanyoro to process organic fertiliser from agricultural waste.

Processing organic fertiliser

The team is currently processing fertiliser at the established plant in Kabanyoro and packaging it for sell. 

This is after reaching a five year memorandum of understanding with the University to utilise a five square meter space for processing organic fertiliser.

They go mobilising youth in Kampala and Wakiso to collect agricultural waste where they purchase one Ton at Shs30,000.

They have constructed boxes using bricks where they drop crushed waste in different boxes and introduce black soldier flies to decompose the waste.

In each box, 250 kilogrammes of crushed waste is dropped and it is harvested after 10 days. It is then sun dried and packaged ready for marketing.

The target farmers are mainly coffee farmers in Wakiso District and elsewhere, tomato farmers and Kampala dwellers growing flowers in the backyard. 

Their aim is to acquire funding in order to obtain land and set up a plant to process 300 metric tonnes organic fertiliser by 2026 to earn revenue worth Shs45m.

Fruits, vegetables and herbs business

Ms Joan Eyotaru is currently pursuing her Maters Degree at Makerere University having completed Bachelor’s degree in food and nutrition.

She is engaged in farming growing vegetables, banana and orange fleshed sweet potato with her parents at Lacute farm located in Logiri in Arua District.

Already she is directly involved in growing leafy vegetables such cowpea leaves, Sukuma wiki, nakatti, eggplant, okra and amaranth.

She has also opened land for growing spice plants such as aloevera, rosemary, mint, basil, cilantro, thyme and oregano among others. Her idea is to package the leafy vegetables in a basket as ascertain its price ready for sell. 

The basket will be packaged with different types of vegetables all in one such that a customer will be able to purchase the different types at ago in order to obtain the various food nutrients.

She is already doing this with her mother in Arua and the basket is delivered to customers on order but some come to purchase directly on farm.

She also has a selling point in Arua city were her mother is doing bakery business baking bread using orange fleshed sweet potato flour.

Bokash bio fertiliser production

Ms Lynnet Nakidde is an extension worker helping coffee farmers in the greater Masaka with best agronomy practices and application of the right inputs.

She began processing bio fertiliser using mixture of poultry litter and charcoal dust. She says it is environmentally friendly and she collects the poultry litter from poultry farmers in the greater Masaka. 

She purchases charcoal dust mainly from charcoal sellers in the region. Currently she is doing it manually but she is seeking funding to purchase a processing machine worth Shs250m. 

Apparently she process the fertiliser in raw form but she also dries it and packages with a kilogramme costing Shs2,000. She has about 3,000 coffee farmers in greater Masaka who are her customers.

Honey bee museum

Kenneth Agaba is engaged in apiary farming in Kanungu District and he is going to establish a bee museum the first of its kind in Uganda. 

The centre will be mainly as educational ground to provide information about bee farming to apiary farmers and students interested in bee keeping as well as host tourists interested in learning about bee keeping. He is already in the initial stages of establishing the centre which he says will be ready by the end of next year.

Agaba belongs to Kanungu bee farmers association and it is his contention that together with the rest of the farmers in the districts, they will organise annually honey bee celebrations gathering apiary farmers and their families across the country and abroad.

Apiary

Kenneth Agaba is engaged in apiary farming in Kanungu District and he is going to establish a bee museum the first of its kind in Uganda.

The centre will be mainly as educational ground to provide information about bee farming to apiary farmers and students interested in bee keeping as well as host tourists interested in learning about bee keeping.