Empowering Women Farmers in Uganda

In Uganda 75 % of the population is still rural based and dependant on small landholdings to produce the food they need. Eighty five percent of the food production is undertaken by women, hence they have a major role in the wellbeing of their families.

Hi, my name is David Collins, I have 40 years’ experience in Agriculture including 21 years with the Western Australian Department of Agriculture and 10 years with Curtin University. I have been involved in the training program in Uganda since 2010 empowering women farmers by improving their use of fertiliser, increasing crop yields and therefore disposable income. The training is science based and not aligned to any particular commercial interest group, ideology or religious leaning. We just provide the information, set up demonstration plots and the farmers can then decide to adopt the new practise or not.
To date we have collected and analysed soil from over 60 peri urban farms near Kampala to determine the yield limiting nutrient/s in the soil. Using these results we ran two series of workshops in 2012 and 2015 to return the findings to the farmers and their neighbours who had provided the soil for analysis. To date the project has been funded by the Crawford Fund and time donated by Dr Deb Pritchard (Curtin University Western Australia), Dr Innocent Muhereza Curtin graduate and Ugandan national who’s PhD initiated the soil sampling , and myself Senior project officer Greening Australia WA. Over 240 farmers have attended the training and our survey has shown that 75% have adopted the improved fertiliser usage and 75% of these farmers have improved their yields between 50 to 400%. This has had a dramatic effect on farm incomes as the excess production is sold at local markets. Our survey also showed that nearly half of this extra income is spent directly on their children’s education.
We now plan to increase the number of farmers reached by training 10 local community leaders and several lead farmers to run workshops themselves with our support. We will provide teaching aid materials and trial plot designs to each trainer.
This is why we are asking for support from you to build on the success we have already achieved and expand to reach more women farmers in Uganda. Please view the attached video and read the testimonial from Jacinta Namutebi.
Please do not hesitate to ask any questions
Cheers, David Collins




Testimonial Jacinta Namutebi
“. Before I start vegetable growing, I requested everything to my husband: salt, soap, clothes, etc. Once I attended training on fertilizer and cattle manure use in vegetable and begin cultivating vegetables on commercial basis, I became a powerful woman able to get more money from vegetable production sold to Kampala markets 3 seasons a year. With revenue from vegetables, I rehabilitate my family house and now I have capacity to buy clothes, shoes, pay medical insurance for five member of my family, paying school for my children and other fees, individual and social needs. I have organized fellow women and through our association of vegetable growers to be registered soon, in which I am member, I was trained on vegetable growing using a combination of cattle manure and fertiliser; I increased vegetable productivity 4 more times than the traditional practice."