Affordable Agricultural Services in Uganda for Sustainable Farming

The Measures Against Climate Change in Agriculture (MACCA) has been developed to utilize the CLIMTAG, a web-based dashboard offering tailored climate information for the past and future, to improve the adaptation of smallholder farmers to the ever-changing climate conditions in Uganda. The focus of the project will be to impact at least 1000 female smallholder maize farmers in the Busoga subregion of Uganda by providing them with training in regenerative agriculture, providing them with affordable credit to expand climate-resilient farming activities and direct sales opportunities to ensure that they reap reasonable household incomes that will ensure their standard of living improves. The Busoga subregion has been selected as it is the region of focus as it has been ranked the poorest region (Uganda Bureau of Statistics household survey report 2019/2020) for the past decade in Uganda. The project will be implemented by a consortium of partners under the Agropreneur Initiative umbrella, with Ondernemers voor Ondernemers (OVO) and Einstein Rising as the lead but with three strong implementation partners to handle the different elements of the initiative.  

The project’s overall objectives were improved farm incomes, rural livelihoods, food security and climate resilience through expansion of rural irrigation schemes together with integrated development of agribusiness opportunities and natural resources management. It addressed a clear barrier to productivity and growth in rural Uganda, namely, access to irrigated land, and is, by design, a strategic response to the impacts of climate change including increasing volatility of rainfall, droughts and flooding in the country. The project was therefore a strategic response of the impact of climate change in Uganda and intended to enable the beneficiary communities and individuals to transit from predominately rain-fed agriculture and climate vulnerable subsistence agriculture to a more sustainable and productive and climate resilient agricultural model. The overall purpose of this consultancy was to build the capacity of the project participating farmers in climate smart agriculture with the focus on alternative livelihoods and skill development along apiculture, aquaculture, rice and other potential value change in the project district.

The project was designed to install and train 80 farmers every quarter of the year. Therefore it impacted over 1600 direct farmers in the 5 years that the project run and considering their families and dependants, the number number impacted went up to over 100,000 people impacted in the period of five years. The chamber was installed using local burnt bricks, sand, Bamboo for top cover, thatched shed and plastic crates. These chambers were installed either at the farm or home place depending on the farmers’ guidance. They were provided to farmers that were harvesting tomatoes and later supplying those tomatoes to us in bulk for processing. 31 percent of greenhouse gas emissions come from electricity production and consumption. a shocking statistic, especially when methane and carbon dioxide emissions are major contributors to global warming. Greenhouse gases reduce air quality and increase weather extremes. Using Zero Energy Cooling Chamber (ZECC) can mitigate some of the damage, as ZECC don’t produce any greenhouse gasses neither does it use electricity to fulfill a function that is normally done by electricity engineered machines.