By Vision Reporter
Director Apollo Gabazira is the winner of the Best Farmer’s competition from the Eastern regions.
He was awarded this afternoon during the the Vision Group Best Farmer Awards ceremony at the company’s head offices in Kampala.
Gabazira, 54, has strived to carry on his parents’ farming legacy. Named Asaba Aweebwa by the family matriarch, the forest farm in Nakabugu Township in Bulongo Sub County, Luuka district, is the pride of the region.
Started over-40-year-ago by Mzee Patrick Isota and Maama Piripa Isota, the farm is made up of tall Eucalyptus, pine, umbrella and Musizi trees, whose green scenery dots the area with natural green cover. Located on the southern side of the township, the attractive canopies appear like a “Green belt,” earning the popular name “Nakabugu’s woodland.”
Under the forest are healthy cocoa, jackfruits, Avocado, oranges, and lemon trees intercropped in the vast coffee plantation. At the end of the twisting way, lined with live fences of chogm flowers, is the swanky residence of the “Isota family,” the proprietors of the “Green Belt.”
About 400 meters away, facing the western side of the Township, is another forest, also owned by the Isota family. Its canopies spice the skyline with greenery.
The plantation forests stimulate the area’s ecosystem by producing rain and generating fresh air that nourishes the Nakabugu wetland, whose waters snake through the neighboring and remote villages.
“We get rain even when other areas are dry. Those two forests attract rain for us,” Wilberforce Musolo, a farm stakeholder, said, adding that travellers often stop to admire the forest cover.
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This is the ninth year running that Vision Group, together with the Embassy of the Netherlands, KLM Airlines, dfcu Bank and Koudijs Animal Nutrition, are running the Best Farmers competition. The 2024 competition run from March to November, culminating in today’s awards ceremony.
