Posted on September, 6, 2021 at 09:53 am
Smallholder farmers in northern Uganda face uncertainty regarding their livelihood following long spells of drought.
Most of the local farmers are carrying on the family's tradition of running small patches of gardens.
Amidst the many challenges farmers face, such as low prices and lack of quality seeds, there is uncertainty brought by unpredictable weather.
"The last seasons have had a lot of ups and downs. We are having a bad time. We do not expect a big harvest," Sarah Atim, a member of Lakwor Farmers Group in Kitgum District.
The group has a six-acre garden of groundnuts from which they hope to harvest this month.
Rain-fed subsistence agriculture is a key source of livelihood for the majority of rural households in Northern Uganda but experts explain that climate change and variability compound existing challenges of production.
The increased occurrence of weather unpredictability and extreme events such as drought, floods and pest infestation threaten agricultural production and, by extension, food security and incomes.
In Kitgum, farmers observed that there are shifts in the onset of first rains from March to late April or May, which delays planting.
This was followed by prolonged dry spells last year.
In Agago District, farmers complained of excessive rainfall which caused flooding in low-lying parts of the district. The rain patterns too, have changed since 2016.
According to Charles Oryema Wamala, the Community Development Officer (CDO) of Lira-Palwo sub-county, the district has been receiving erratic rains since 2018.
The variability is visible in the production cycle.
Oryema explains that this has adversely impacted food security mainly because of massive crop failures.
Now, as northern Uganda grapples to cope with a drought, humanitarian organisations are encouraging farmers to increase the uptake of improved crop varieties.
"There are efforts to provide food security and we are happy of the involvement of organisations in supplementing the efforts of government in improving food production," Oryema added.
He highlighted the role of the Adventist Development and Relief Agency (ADRA)'s livelihood programme, Social Change and Livelihood Enhancement Programme (SCALE), which supports smallholder farmers with climate-resilient seed and cassava cuttings.
Farmers are also coping by using oxen to be able to open up more land in less time.
A pair of oxen is Shs1.5m. But most farmers cannot afford one. To overcome the challenge, they organise themselves in groups and contribute Shs10, 000 to facilitate a day's ploughing. An acre takes between two to three days to be completed.
Grace Akili, a member of Lubanga Ber VSLA Youth Group in Lapilyet village, Lapeta Parish, Lirapalwo and Agago District says she now has three gardens from one. A garden is roughly just above an acre.
"It has greatly improved the acreage we farm and saves time during planting as well as facilitating timely planting," Akili says.
But farmers still face a challenge of access to seeds claiming that middlemen buy most of the quality seeds and hoard them before reselling them at a high price.
Source
Rain-fed subsistence agriculture is a key source of livelihood for the majority of rural households in Northern Uganda but experts explain that climate change and variability compound existing challenges of production.
Source: Monitor