Participants present at the Launch of the Global Programme for Small-scale Agroecology Producers and Sustainable Food Systems Transformation (GP-SAEP)’ Project in Uganda
KAMPALA: On the 29th February 2024, the Uganda Forum for Agricultural Advisory Services (UFAAS), with support from the Global Forum for Rural Advisory Services (GFRAS), and the African Forum for Agricultural Advisory Services (AFAAS), with funding from the European Union launched the Global Programme for Small-scale Agroecology Producers and Sustainable Food Systems Transformation project (GP-SAEP).
“The goal of the project is the transformation of food systems towards agroecology by enabling small-scale producers to strengthen their practices of agroecology through better access to knowledge, support services, improved technologies, and market outlets”
Uganda is one of the four countries where this project is being implemented globally together with Madagascar from Africa and the other two from Latin America: Costa Rica and Ecuador.
According to Dr Hlami N Lagwenya SAEP Project Coordinator, GFRAS said that Uganda is a country that has a very strong system because for this project to work, there is a need for leadership and guidance.
Dr. Hlami N Lagwenya SAEP Project Coordinator, GFRAS appreciates that “Uganda is a country that has a very strong system to enable the project to run smoothly”
“When looked at the other countries where the other components are working, we felt that when we go there, will not hit the ground running but have to start by strengthening systems and Uganda came top because they have UFAAS and the track records are amazing. So we negotiated and decided we were going to Uganda,” she said
“The country forum in Uganda is way ahead in terms of systems put in place. When we decided about the project mission, we decided to come to Uganda and we brought teams from Madagascar, Latin America so that they could also learn how Uganda is operating and in terms of progress, Uganda is in the lead,” she added
Hon. Kyakulaga Fred Bwino, the Minister of State for Agriculture, Animal Industry, and Fisheries, who officiated the launch of the project reminded the participants how agriculture is very important to the country providing more than 70% employment and all the nutritional and food security needs to the people.
Hon. Kyakulaga Fred Bwino while addressing the participants thanked GFRAS for choosing Uganda
However, with the challenges like climate change facing the agricultural sector, Hon. Kyakulaga said that he is happy that this project is coming on board and he is certain that it will contribute to solving the challenge of climate change.
At the same time, agriculture faces the challenge of the practitioners being far from the knowledge and innovations around agriculture where they need somebody to link farmers to that knowledge and innovation and that is the role played by agriculture advisory services.
“This is what brings you people at the center of solving these challenges, I am grateful to GFRAS, AFAAS, and UFAAS as tools to that space,” Kyakulaga thanked
He also thanked GFRAS for choosing Uganda. “Thank you for deciding that we should transit to agroecology. I wanted to inform you that for us in Uganda, we are not transiting, we are already there, and we shall only need to renew, I always like telling people that agroecology is Uganda’s culture,” he added
He also assured the people that as a political leader of the ministry and as representative of the government, he is committed to the holistic approach where it is not only the government to dominate the space, but shall continue to push for a situation where the private and public actors play the role. “This project has come at the right time and I want to pledge total support towards this project,” the Minister assured
Mr. Max Olupot, the Director of Programmes at AFAAS also said the project is mainly for smallholder farmers and it is the reason for training the master trainers as their role is to go and organize smallholder farmers in those groups which some already exist and others may be stimulated to start and they will take them through a learning process where they will be co-creating knowledge, expressing their problems, and together they co-create to get solutions.
Mr. Max Olupot, the Director of Programmes at AFAAS addressed the participants
Talking in terms of how they are farming, growing crops, and keeping animals, but mainly focusing on money and agroecology, this means farming sustainably where a farmer is mindful of the environment, the future, the regeneration of the soils, and working together in a synergy where he or she is minding about the markets, but the markets that have products that are not toxic.
He explained that the launch will help the master trainers working together with the UFAAS trainers to figure out how they can now work with the farmers whom they have been given 11 months but along the way, they will be refreshed with the tools, knowledge, and skills that they need to interact with the smallholder farmers.
In choosing the districts where the project will be implemented was looked at the angle of the agroecological conditions and where climate change is more pronounced. “Look at Kasese for example, it is vulnerable to floods, and all those districts are very vulnerable but also the population which has an effect in terms of agricultural production because of the pressure on land.
“These are going to be pilot projects, seeing the vulnerability in those districts, and after the learning process, they will be scaling out. That means going to other districts with the knowledge and skills on how this will work out but we are hopeful that the outputs and outcomes of this project will be very useful, not just for only Uganda, but with other countries that we work in,” Olupot explained
How Uganda’s small-scale farmers will benefit from the project
This project is geared towards supporting small-scale farmers looking at the agroecology transition. This means that the way farmers practice agriculture will be supported to make sure that they have resource efficiency and how to improve considering that there are a lot of resources around them.
They will be supported on how to use them say how to recycle, know the input to crops or even energy resources, reduce external inputs, know how to use mulching, and utilize the resources that they have to increase productivity.
Farmers will be supported towards the second element of this agroecology principle on how to increase the strength and the resilience of their farms or maybe the food system. For instance, how to make sure that when there are shocks, for example, their farming system remains more resilient and makes sure that the soil is healthy.
Through this project, a farmer will know how their animal health is taken care of and how to diversify on the farm so that in case of drought and the crops are not performing well, a farmer has other products to depend on, and also how to diversify in terms of their economic pathways and a farm can be able to work holistically.
Farmers will see a reduction of inputs and can be able to save a lot of money but also produce food that the practices of production in line with working nicely with the environment, and yet still increase productivity.
The project has also considered the social aspect of how within the farm a farmer can take care of the social aspect but also how to co-generate knowledge since a lot of farmers have a lot of knowledge.
“In this project, we learn from where the farmer is, if the farmer has been implementing or doing something based on the traditions and all that, we have to learn from them how it works and how to support them in making sure that they are using those practices, therefore we support and also respect the indigenous knowledge systems, the cultures but also bring in the gender aspect and how it all happens,” Hlami Ngwenya explained
The project has considered gender and social Inclusivity
The project is structured in such a way that the people who will work bring out that gender element, for example, of the 60 extension officers selected, 40% have to be women and 30% are youth by looking at a minimum of 2500 farmers.
The entire project promises to reach out to 10,000 smallholder farming families therefore to be able to reach that 10,000 each country has to reach 2500. “We have to work it backward to be able to reach these many farmers and how to make it happen, each extension officer needs to reach at least a minimum of 50. That’s how we will work to achieve those numbers,” SAEP Project Coordinator, GFRAS explained
Adeline Muheebwa, Board Chairperson for UFAAS suggested that the project should also look out for the elderly. “When we talk about agroecology, and we are talking about the rural community, we need not look at only men, women, and youth but we should go beyond to intersectionality to fall for the indigenous knowledge,” she suggested
According to Muheebwa, agroecology is an old scientific method that we didn’t know was science but has existed since time immemorial. Learning from those elderly would also benefit the program because they have the archives of what has been happening and they may not have the documentation in writing, but they could also inform the project.
The uniqueness of the project
According to the SAEP Project Coordinator, GFRAS explained that what is unique about this project is that they do not train them and run away but hold them for the next three years or maybe about 30 months. “We hand-hold them exactly and walk the journey together.”
After those months when the project ends, they look back and find out what we have achieved together and carry out a baseline to say this is where they are starting so that they can be able to track the changes.
“In three years, farmers can’t have changed, but we want to see those small transitions that will happen and we will document that,” Dr Hlami Ngwenya informed
Expectations of the project
They want the farmers to understand where they are and where they want to go as farmers. “We don’t come with things to say you have to do this but we talk to the farmer to say this is where you are, you have been farming for so many years and this is where you want to go,” said Beatrice Namusoke Luzobe the Chief Executive Officer of UFAAS
Looking at what is hindering farmers from achieving that goal where they want to be. And then look at the current practices to say what they can do to help them address those challenges so they can live to their desired state. “We don’t come with solutions from elsewhere but they are cogenerated with the farmers,” the Chief Executive Officer of UFAAS added
Contribution from the other Partners
With other partners like Access Agriculture an organization that promotes agroecological principles and rural entrepreneurship through capacity development and South-South exchange of quality farmer-to-farmer training videos in local languages.
Blessings Flao, Project Manager, GP-SAEP from Access Agriculture said that on this project, they will lead the development and deployment of digital tools to support farming families in agroecological transitioning and strengthen the capacities of the Rural Advisory Services (RAS) facilitators and the Rural Advisory Services (RAS) provider organizations in knowledge co-creation, using digital, last-mile delivery tools (our farmer-to-farmer training videos delivered through solar-powered, smart projectors and mobile app.).
Blessings Flao, Project Manager, GP-SAEP from Access Agriculture signing on the launch
“We will add more videos in other Ugandan languages of Rukonzo and Runyakitarato to the already existing videos and languages. At the moment, we have hundreds of farmer-to-farmer training videos available for free on our website in different Ugandan languages (Luganda and Luo), that people can already access.”
What do they plan to achieve as a key partner in this project?
“We will promote and support the sharing of agroecological knowledge with 2,500 farming households in Uganda in this Project. Our farmer-to-farmer approach will help Ugandan farming families see how they can make a success of chemical-free farming to benefit their health and that of the nation,” he said.
How will smallholder farmers benefit as a result of Access Agriculture being a part of the Project?
“We hope our work, in partnership with the partners and stakeholders we are working with, will lead to improved rural livelihoods and sustainable food systems for the smallholder farmers/farming households that we reach. And that they, in turn, will also pass on the lessons they learn to other farmers for an even greater reach, and all in local Ugandan languages,” Blessings Flao added
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