Friday, February 23

There will be 8 sessions on this day covering various enterprises as follows: In the morning trainings include coffee farming, fish farming, mushrooms and passion fruit farming, while the afternoon session will have the special students session, poultry, goat keeping and urban farming.  

Coffee/Value addition facilitated by Edward Lutakome and Joseph Nkandu

Coffee is the leading export income earner for Uganda and Uganda is the second largest coffee producer after Ethiopia in Africa. Worldwide, Uganda is ranked as the seventh largest producer. Annually, Uganda earns about US$600m from coffee. The session will be facilitated by Edward Lutakoome, who works with the Uganda Coffee Development Authority, the government agency responsible for coffee farming development and regulation, while Joseph Nkandu works with the National Union of Coffee Agribusiness and Farm Enterprises (NUCAFE) and is a re-known coffee farmer in Mpigi district.

This will take place in the morning. It will take farmers through the value chain from cultivation to adding value to coffee beans. “We are the second leading producer of coffee in Africa and the leading exporter of coffee in Africa but we are still making a lot of losses due to poor harvesting handling Lutakoome says.  This is largely due to the fact that value addition is still very low. “Adding final consumer value through roasting will increase the number of local coffee consumers,” he says. The trainers will show the trainees the process of adding final consumer value to coffee.  This will be repeated on the morning of Sunday February 25th.

Fish farming  

Uganda largely depends on lake fish however, Lake Victoria has been drained out of fish and now fish scarcity is gradually increasing. This is why growing pond fish is the next big thing. Uganda produces up to 130,000 tonnes of fish from aquaculture, including production from small- scale fish farmers, emerging commercial fish farmers and stocked community water reservoirs and minor lakes. There are an estimated 20, 000 ponds throughout the country with an average surface area of 500 m² per pond. Areas of Busia, Tororo, Namayingo have got a considerable amount of fish ponds. Production ranges between 1 500 kg per hectare per year for subsistence farmers to 15, 000 kg per hectare per year for emerging commercial fish farmers. But this, according to the National Aquaculture report is not enough.

The fish farming training will be conducted by Vincent  Ssebutemba  a fish farmer in Nsangi, Masaka Road and Ivan Ssabwe, an expert working with Koudjis Nutrition BV. In addition to taking trainees through the basics of fish farming, including proper feeding, pond selection, stocking, they will show them how to add value to fish. “Smoked or salted fish has got big market in Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and South Sudan, so it is important that farmers learn how to smoke or even process fish into products like sausages,” Ssebutemba says.  

Goat keeping

Goats are money makers. However, the country, with about 16million goats (according to MAAIF) does not have enough goats to sustain larger regional and international markets. This session, on Friday afternoon, the first of two goat keeping sessions will take place. This will be facilitated by Edgar Muhumuza and Juliet Kanyesigye. Muhumuza is a goat keeper and a trainer in the enterprise. Muhumuza will take trainees through hands-on practices of managing goats.

Meanwhile, Juliet Kanyesigye a dairy goat farmer will focus on the management of dairy goats. Kanyesigye owns Kanyes Dairy Goats farm that also adds value to goats milk.

“Dairy goats are gradually picking up across the country, however I go a step further by adding value to the milk. I process it into products like lotions, soap and skin jelly,” she says. The session will be repeated on Saturday afternoon.    

Passion Fruit

A sack of passion fruits currently goes for as much as sh700,000! If you have an acre that yields averagely 10 sacks a month, that is sh7m. Thee is certainly money in passion fruits. This session will be facilitated by Bashir Mayiga (Best farmer 2016) Joseph Kiggundu. Mayiga says since passion fruit growing is one of the enterprises that one can easily venture into with considerably low capital. , those who will attend the training will be equipped with the A-Z on how to make profits from passion fruit farming.

“We shall tell and show them why adding value to passion fruits drastically improves profits,” Mayiga says. In addition to selling fruits, Mayiga also processes passion fruit juice.

Mushroom farming

In the smallest spaces of say 10×10 feet, one can maintain as many as 400 ‘plants’ of mushrooms. From these, you can get a daily income of about sh50,000. This is why this session is a must attend. The training on Friday morning will be growing, postharvest and value addition on mushrooms byAbel Kiddu, who is one of the best farmers. He makes wines, cosmetics and powdered products that fetch more money for the farm. “When you get the basics of growing mushrooms right, you will obviously get money from it,” he says.

Poultry

Poultry especially broilers and layers are one of the most rewarding livestock. Although Uganda has over 40million domesticated birds, exotic, fast money making species especially layers and broilers are less than 2million. Of course challenges like feeds and good breeds. The session  on poultry will try to tackle the two. This will be conducted by Owekitibwa Robert Sserwanga, Chris Magezi and Dr Samuel Ssewagudde, all of them are experts in the poultry sector trained in the Netherlands and other countries.  

“Farmers are facing a lot of challenges that include diseases, high cost of feeds and markets. We shall show farmers how to feed the chicken effectively and cheaply without compromising the quality of the feeds,” Ssewagudde says. There will be a repeat on Sunday morning.

Bananas

This will also be conducted on Friday afternoon. The session will be conducted by a team of experienced farmers including Washington Mugerwa, a banana farmer and researcher and Disan Muwanga. In addition to farming practices, trainees will learn how to add value to bananas to make products like flour, juice, wines and crafts. “Basic management of banana shambas remains a big challenge for farmers. It is common to see a farmer setting up a shamba, but after less than two years it is gone. We shall show farmers how they can maintain these shambas longer,” Muwanga says.

Urban Farming

This will be conducted by Prof. Diana Nambatya Nsubuga and Harriet Nakabaale, both experienced urban farmers.

Prof. Nambatya explains that it is important for everyone to produce part of what they consume at home like spring onions, carrots, green pepper among others to minimise household expenditures. Such crops can be grown in one’s backyard as the trainers will elaborate on during the training. 

“There are ways through which urban farmers can add value to urban waste and earn more. We shall look at these ways in detail,” says Nambatya. 

Students training session-Friday 2PM

It is important that farming is introduced to young people at a fair age. This is why a session by selected students of Gayaza and Iganga SSS was arranged. “For many years, agriculture has been perceived as an activity to only produce food for home consumption, especially by ‘failures in life,’ the uneducated and the poor,” Monica Nakaziba, the Iganga head teacher says. But at Iganga, students are being showed that it is possible to earn money from the farm.

Nakaziba says that training young people has a multiplier effect. The Uganda Bureau of statistics, estimates that about 68% of Uganda’s working population is employed in Agriculture. This means that agriculture is the main employer of Uganda’s population where 70% are youths according to UBOS. It is prudent that the youths are interested and trained into agriculture as a business because it is the backbone of the country’s economy.