Climate-Smart Agriculture Practices Turns into a Life-Saving Project for Rural Farmers in Lira and Otuke Districts.

In the Lango sub-region of Northern Uganda, climate-smart agricultural practices have been instrumental in helping farmers cope with the impacts of climate change, such as drought and flooding. By embracing climate-smart agriculture, farmers have been able to increase their agricultural productivity, reduce greenhouse gas emissions and enhance their well-being.

Some farmers in Lira and Otuke have demonstrated the potential of climate-smart agricultural practices to transform the lives of smallholder farmers and contribute to the achievement of Uganda’s climate change mitigation and adaptation goals.

In a remarkable turn of events, Tonny Blair Acala, 46, a resident of Ogeo A, Apua Parish, Aromo sub-county, Lira district, started his dream of fighting climate change in 2012 with a tree planting initiative before coming up with the plan for exploring the irrigation system.

“I started by raising seedlings in a small nursery bed, and I was dealing mostly in fruits and eucalyptus. I made sure that each household in my community got five seedlings for free because they had a negative attitude towards my project and were not willing to buy my seedlings,” Acala Narrates.

Acala said he started expanding his nursery bed between 2014 to 2016 with the intention of getting money, but accessing water was a big challenge for him as he used to walk for 2 km to get water for watering his seedlings.

Acala, who did not advance his education, says the only way he believes he can survive is through farming, but all of a sudden, climate change started showing him an exit from his dream, which is why he could not give up amidst challenges from different angles.

“After completing my primary level, I did not join secondary education due to financial constrain, but later I opted for vocational training where I also stopped in junior one and I started hustling at home”, Acala added.

In the twist of events, Acala took a step of faith by injecting 12 million Uganda Shillings to buy a solar system, and dig a well to irrigate his garden, and this is where he started realising his dream of commercial farming and supporting his community members.

“I picked up the interest of irrigation system from a friend who started using irrigation some time back, and he continuously encourages me to take on the irrigation system because it’s the best practice to mitigate climate change,” he explained.

He started with one solar panel, and later Lira district local government noticed his initiative and supported him with another solar panel under the Uganda Intergovernmental Fiscal Transfers (UGIFT) project, and this is helping him to irrigate more acres of land. 

Acala said that he can practice three types of irrigation in his farm, that is, sprinkler irrigation, which he mostly uses on tomatoes and other vegetables, drip Irrigation, which he mostly uses on cabbage and onions, as well as pump irrigation.

He stressed that through using these irrigation systems, he can plant vegetables at any time of the season, adding that in this coming dry season, he is planting more onions and tomatoes.

The impact of using the irrigation system 

Acala says he can make more money on a very small piece of land. For example, last season he planted cabbage in a space of 20 by 30 square feet of land, and he harvested four tippers of cabbage from which he got 5 million shillings.

On average, Acala is getting 3 million per season from different enterprises.

Acala used his money to build a commercial house in the urban area and also a residential house at his home. He started a vocational training centre that trains school dropouts, he is paying fees for school his children in good schools within Lira city, and he has bought land.

The water that he is using for irrigation is saving the community by providing drinking water for their domestic animals.

“When I started this project, I created a tap water in the well that I dug, and now over 80 households from three villages of Ogengo A, Ajuri A, Amitikuc, and Adagamone are using it at a free cost”, he expressed.

Acala has created a free space for the community to benchmark and learn how to go about the irrigation method, which is encouraging the entire community to join in the fight against climate change.

“There are more than four people in this community who are practising irrigation at a small scale using different methods, and others have started with kitchen gardening, and this is because they have been so close to me.”

Challenges caused by climate change

Acala highlighted numerous challenges that he and other farmers are facing due to the effects of climate change, and the most notable ones are poor yield, poverty that prevents farmers from affording the irrigation equipment, a knowledge gap as they only rely on the information from the radio, a lack of market for the products and poor roads.

He urged the government to inject more money into the agricultural sector through budget allocation to support the farmers in the fight against climate change.

He also noted that there is a need for more agricultural extension workers in different sub-counties, as one person cannot visit the farmers in the entire sub-county, and this is creating an information gap.

On the other hand, Margaret Akullu, 54 years old, a widow and a resident of Awe Ayela village, is also practising the motorised irrigation method.

Akullu said when her husband died in 2010, life became hard as they had nothing at their home and she could not afford essentials as a mother. 

“When my husband died, I was left in a dilemma to the extent that I slept in a grass-thatched house without a door”, Akullu narrated. 

She said her story turned overnight in 2011 when she attended a climate-smart agriculture practice and model home training from Sasakawa Africa Association, an organisation fighting climate change and nutrition issues in the two districts of Otuke and Kole. This has helped her acquire a generator, pump, pipe, and solar for irrigation. 

“When I came back from the training, I started engaging myself in climate-smart agriculture by planting watermelon and oranges like avocado and lemon, kitchen gardening because I have the irrigation system that supports my project”. 

Above all, she can harvest the rainwater, which she conserves and uses for irrigation during dry periods. 

Through her life skill initiatives, she has become the leader of widows in her parish, leading over 70 women who are vulnerable.

“The community trusts me so much because they believe in my project, and the widows are now involved in life skills and climate-smart agriculture. 

Akullu is also a champion in fighting malnutrition in her village through her model – Home Initiatives for Food Supplements. 

“There were increasing cases of malnutrition among infant babies in my community, but at the moment, there is a significant improvement because of the porridge that I am providing to over 30 children in my parish”.

How Akullu is benefiting

Last season, she produced a lorry full of watermelons and she got 3.5 million out of it. She is getting an average of 3 million in oranges, and she can make an average of 500,000 from making porridge, pancakes, and ‘daddy’s’ cake per week. 

Akullu has used the money to build two permanent houses, buy a motorcycle, and pay for 5 children to school. The last one is finishing her university degree this year. However, she decries the lack of a good local market for her production, the poor road network and the high cost of farm inputs, among others.

Danish Owani, the agricultural extension officer attached to Aromo sub-county, Lira district, says farmers are embracing climate-smart agriculture within the Aromo sub-county and the entire Lira district much as climate change has caused significant effects on the farmers. 

“We are training farmers on how to adapt to climate change, like early planting of crops, tree planting, irrigation, among others, although others are still not willing to embrace it due to the economic status of their families”.

Owani stressed that Aromo sub-county has become the leading green vegetable producer in the Lira district because more farmers are adopting climate-smart agricultural practices like irrigation. However, he says the challenge in climate-smart agriculture is the affordability of equipment and farm inputs, as it requires higher technology.

Dorcas Alum, the senior Agricultural officer for  Lira district, said farming has become like gambling in Lira district because most farmers cannot afford irrigation practices. 

She added that through government programs of micro-scale irrigation, farmers are gradually embracing it, but there are still challenges of finance, where farmers cannot co-fund the 25℅

In 2020, the government of Uganda, through the Ministry of Agriculture, earmarked 40 billion shillings for the first phase of a micro-scale irrigation program. The program is aimed at creating 3.75 acres of land under irrigation across the country.

This production of the story was supported by InfoNile in partnership with Climate Smart Jobs.