By Christopher Bendana
As an agricultural researcher and academic, Joshua Zake, has always been fascinated with finding out answers for farmers’ agricultural problems.
With a doctorate in environmental studies and natural resources from the University of Natural Resources and Life Science in Vienna, Austria, and a bachelor’s in agriculture from Makerere University, coupled with experience as a field officer and top manager at Environmental Alert agricultural challenges and solutions have been much of his life.
For he worked with farmers on organic manure, fighting pesticides, and agro-forestry among others answering some of his research questions about water stresses and low agricultural productivity in the cattle corridor.
Therefore, when he tried coffee, and banana farming on a piece of land he had acquired in, Njeru, Kitakyusa, Kituntu, Mpigi district part of the cattle corridor and it did not work he was at it again. Studying the problem of water stress and looking out for solutions. He started by intercropping coffee trees, with eucalyptus trees, indigenous musizi, and mutuba trees, and bee lives.
“I wanted to test this integrated approach,” he says cheerfully. “It has worked. The coffee is giving me something now compared to the past as I wait for the trees to grow. The climatic conditions are now favourable. Each tree has its advantages. They complement each other.”
Eucalyptus trees are fast-growing ones and the market is readily available: they are sold to make electric poles or to the Chinese who make soft boards from them.
This limits the pressure on the trees in the neighbouring swamps and forests.
Due to the small nature of their leaves, and their canopy, they allow light for the shorter trees like coffee to flourish. The leaves become manure once they fall on the ground.
In areas where there is no coffee they allow the regeneration of indigenous trees
The Musizi trees act as windbreakers and boundary walls.
Coffee is mainly for income, while beehives are pollinators and for honey.
“I may not earn as one doing mono-crop, but I earn from two crops. I don’t have the menace of caretakers and thieves,” he explains the economic equation.
Challenge
He says his main challenge is still water, especially during the dry season.
Stuart Maniraguha, the plantation development manager at the National Forest Authority (NFA) says intercropping eucalyptus (allelopathy) with shorter trees does allow for the natural regeneration of the natural forests but recommends wide spacing to limit the competition for nutrients.
He adds that the eucalyptus has another advantage of having a deep root that can pick nutrients that other trees would not pick.
Dr Joel Buyinza, an agroforestry scientist at the National Forests Resources Institute, a NARO forest research institute says an integrated forest farm like one of Zake comes with multiple advantages though he is short of recommending eucalyptus.
“I like the fact that he has beehives on site. They are important in the pollination of coffee and they can get nectar from eucalyptus flowers,” he argued.
He, however, does not support the growth of coffee and eucalyptus together
“It will out-compete coffee for nutrients,” he notes.
He advises on trees with large flat canopy-shaped tops like Magavu as they can provide shade for the shorter trees like coffee. Their leaves fall on the ground and create organic manure.
He adds on trees that have nitrogen-fixing abilities. Others are indigenous trees like mutuba that provide feed for animals like goats.
He argues that tree biodiversity limits the spread of pests and diseases, as pests are most likely to only attack one tree piece.
“The higher the biodiversity of trees on a farm, the higher the resilience of the area to climate change,” he adds.
Research
Belay Zerga and others in their study, The Sustainability of reforestation landscapes with exotic species: a case study of eucalyptus in Ethiopia, point out/state that the arguments should rather be on where the eucalyptus is planted and the management rather than the characteristics of the tree.
“The negative impacts can be minimized,” they argue. Reconstruct this sentence.
The proposition of the trio, who studied the advantages and drawbacks of eucalyptus plantation in Ethiopia, is that the debate should focus on a mixture of how indigenous, eucalyptus and natural forests contribute to environmental conservation and economic development.
They advance the argument that site location should be based on maximum wood production, ecological sustainability, the market for the species, and the economic benefit to the community.
Their argument for the eucalyptus include the diverse gene pool, easy seed access, fast-growing and superior performance than other exotic and indigenous species, ability to grow in marginal soils, and tolerance to pests and diseases.
This makes the tree another form of liquid cash, and adoption in many parts of Uganda validates the assertion.
Their findings also debunk some of the myths propagated across the globe about the thirsts of the specie.
They reveal that while it might pick more water in arid areas due to the nature of its taproot it will not out-compete other trees and crops in areas of high rainfall. It also converted available water into biomass better than other crops and trees.
Their study shows per unit of biomass of 510 liters per biomass produced, potato and sunflower is 600, cotton, banana, and coffee 800 liters, Acacia tree is 860 liters
Way forward
Zake says he is ready to scale it up and he is happy that some farmers in the Nkozi area are already picking the practice. He advises those with marginal soils to adopt his approach.
Challenge
The eucalyptus trees are now one of the most grown plantation trees in the country. Conservationists agree they provide the better alternative in terms of energy use and time products.
It reduces the pressure on the natural forest. It provides me for many small-scale farmers on marginal soils that would not support any other cash crop. 90% of Ugandans use biomass for their cooking according to the Energy Ministry.
