The prime minister of Bunyoro Kitara Kingdom, Mr Andrew Byakutaga has launched a pilot project aimed at promoting mechanization of agriculture using a cluster model.
Prosper Mama Africa is demonstrating that farming is a business which smallholder farmers can us to get themselves out of poverty.
This new model stands on three pillars of mechanized farming, community farming and market focused farming.
“We welcome this project that aims at improving on the social economic welfare of our people. Using agriculture to empower communities is in the plan of Bunyoro Kitara Kingdom and government is doing the same in several interventions,” Byakutaga said.
He said the kingdom is empowering communities to embrace technology to improve production and the quality of life.
“We are educating and empowering communities to have model homes where people have decent accommodation, a kitchen, a toilet, an income generating project and people living in a clean environment,” Byakutaga said.
Under the project, PMA trains farmers in mindset change and shows the way to move from subsistence to commercial agriculture. The project aims at improving food security in rural Uganda whilst increasing incomes of each household.
“No one wants to be poor. No one deserves to be poor. And yet millions of people are still trapped in extreme poverty and subsistence agriculture. By helping small farmers to change their mindset towards farming and providing them with access to appropriate farming technologies and modern farming technics, poor people are able to get themselves out of this chronic situation,” said Mr David Lukwago, founder at Prosper Mama Africa (PMA).
He said everyone can have enough balanced food to eat throughout the year and have enough money to support their families.
Under the project, farmers are replacing the hand hoe that they have used for their lifetime with tractors for land preparation and planting.
According to Mr Lukwago, farmers are planting the right seeds, applying organic fertilizers and caring for their crops professionally.
Poverty situation
According to the World Bank, Poverty reduction among households in agriculture accounts for 79 percent of national poverty reduction from 2006 to 2013.
According to the World Bank Group’s September 2016 Poverty Assessment, the proportion of the Ugandan population living beneath the national poverty line declined from 31.1 percent in 2006 to 19.7 percent in 2013.
Similarly, the country was one of the fastest in Sub-Saharan Africa to reduce the share of its population living on $1.90 PPP per day or less, from 53.2 percent in 2006 to 34.6 percent in 2013.
According to the report, the proportion of the total number of poor people who live in the Northern and Eastern regions increased between 2006 and 2013, from 68 percent to 84 percent, according to the report. Poverty incidence is also higher in the north (43.7 percent) and the east (24.5 percent) compared to the central (4.7 percent) and the west (8.7 percent).
A third of Ugandans remained poor and vulnerable to shocks despite the reduction of poverty.
The Bank stated that between 2005 and 2009, for every three Ugandans who were lifted out of poverty, two fell back into poverty.
