AfrII partakes in the high-level South-South Policy Exchange to Costa Rica
Uganda’s delegation led by Hon. Sam Cheptoris, Uganda’s Minister for Water and Environment (3rd right) in a photo with Hon. Carlos Manuel Rodriguez, Costa Rica’s Minister of Environment and Energy. Also in the photo is Prof. Otim-Nape, the AfrII Chairman (Right), Dr. Peter Alele, the CI/Vital Signs Africa Field Director (2nd right) and other key officials from Uganda.
The just concluded six-day High-level South-South Policy exchange (March 28-April 7, 2019) that was organized by Conservation International attracted 8 delegates from Uganda to learn directly from the Costa Rican experience in implementing a variety of sustainable development policies and discuss which approaches can be applied in the Uganda context.
Among the delegation was the AfrII Chairman Prof. G.W. Otim-Nape; Hon. Sam Cheptoris Uganda’s Minister for Water and Environment (MoWE); Mr. Alfred Okidi-the Permanent Secretary MoWE; Mr. Pius Wakabi Kasajja, the Permanent Secretary for the Ministry of Agriculture, Animal Industry and Fisheries (MAAIF); Dr. Tom Okello Obong, the Executive Director of the National Forestry Authority (NFA) and Mr. Mike Butseya Maliro the Regional Manager for Western Region at the Uganda Coffee Development Authority (UCDA).
The delegation met with Costa Rica’s Minister for Environment and Energy, Mr. Carlos Manuel Rodriguez and other key government officials on the country’s approaches to ecotourism, financing conservation efforts and managing forests and farms in the same landscape.
From the discussions, the delegation was impressed by how Costa Rica uses ecotourism as a driver to integrate sustainable practices that have enabled a positive environment for her communities and tourists; and realized the need by Uganda to borrow a leaf from Costa Rica and adopt strong policy frameworks and implementation for effective environmental conservation including community forest management and restoration of degraded lands, and Institutional, legal and financial reforms relevant to conservation, including approaches to eco system valuation.
The delegation in pictures after a nature walk in the tropical forest and national park of Costa Rica.
‘Leave no one behind in the fight against climate change’-AfrII’s plea to Uganda’s leadership.
AfrII Chairman, Prof. George William Otim-Nape addresses climate change experts during the CBIT Project workshop at Hotel Africana.
“We are doing something but not enough. Uganda is losing close to 200,000 hectares of forest every year. This situation is thus quite worrying because it exposes a high rate of deforestation in the country. Years from now we shall have no forests, no rain, no water. Hence, this country needs high level committed leadership in environmental conservation to fight climate change. It needs innovative interventions and really serious and committed leadership where everybody is mobilized to own the fight against climate change. Imagine if there was a law saying “each person living in Uganda must plant a tree on his or her birthday. Or if it said, ‘On every wedding anniversary, plant a tree. How many trees would be planted in a day?” And, if we do this consistently for 10 years, we will have contributed a great deal to climate action.” –AfrII Chairman, Professor George William Otim-Nape.
He urged everybody to get on board and actively join the fight against climate change. “Let us all have the will and commitment to this. The threats are real, we are experiencing them, and being hit hard, an evident example is the long dry spells the country is currently faced with, the floods and landslides. Therefore, if we do not conserve nature, we will continue to suffer such climate change effects” added Prof. Nape.
He made the remarks at the just concluded National Stakeholders Workshop for the National Green House Gas Inventory (GHG) and Measuring Reporting and Verification (MRV) system under the Capacity Building Initiative for Transparency (CBIT) Project. The event was organized by the Ministry of Water and Environment-Climate Change Department (MoWE-CCD) in collaboration with Conservation International (CI) and the Africa Innovations Institute (AfrII) with aim to;
- Conduct gender awareness and mainstreaming in sector specific climate change activities.
- Share lessons and best practices across sectors in climate action.
- Assess the training, capacity and data management needs in the 5 NDC sectors.
- Revitalize the discussion around the institutional arrangements on data collection, processing and sharing. Role
The Global Environment Facility (GEF) through CI is funding the CBIT Project to support GOU to meet the transparency requirements of the Paris Agreement. CBIT intends to support CCD to strengthen institutional arrangements and build capacity of stakeholders for GHG data collection and processing in 5 key sectors; Agriculture, Forestry, Energy, Transport and Waste.
CAVA II restores Farm Uganda’s cassava business to get bigger profits using the batch drying technology
The Farm Uganda cassava batch dryer factory located in Kigumba, Kiryandongo district in Central Uganda.
Farm Uganda, is an agro processing company which has been in operation since 2008. It is located in Kigumba sub county in Kiryandongo district, Central Uganda and deals mainly in commercial farming, milling, packaging and trading of maize corn flour, white sorghum, and cassava flour. The company is co-owned by Mr. Sosimu Twesiga, Mr. Bamutaze Julius and Mr. Kalihanyu Claudio. Before 2015 and 2016, when the cassava projects; the Agricultural Technology Transfer (AgriTT) and Cassava Adding Value for Africa (CAVA) intervened respectively, the company faced a number of challenges including low quality and low volumes of cassava flour produced for the available markets like Uganda Breweries Limited (UBL) and the composite market users around Metropolitan Kampala, South Sudan and Rwanda. The company is the biggest supplier of cassava flour to the brewery that consumes about 3000 metric tons annually to brew the locally popular Ngule and Senator beer brands. Mr. Sosimu Twesiga, the business co-owner tells their story with the AgriTT and CAVA journeys using the cassava batch dryer technology.
Sosimu states that the company had been working with the brewery since 2012 but faced so many challenges especially around cassava production and processing. Farmers were growing the disease susceptible materials, and drying the processed cassava was hectic especially in the rainy season. He adds that the drying method was very rudimentary leading to contamination of the product greatly affecting its quality to meet the market parameters. “Cassava flour was highly needed by the brewery for beer processing. However, post-harvest handling was so poor and we faced a big challenge of quality and meeting required volumes of the product for the brewery that had specific parameters of what they needed. After several rejections of the product, we then realized a need for a strategy and so came an idea to acquire a processing machine and also adopt better production technologies to counter the challenges.” remarks Sosimu.
Sosim recounts the company’s journey since the AgriTT and CAVA project interventions. “Through UBL’s Agriculture Manager, Mr. Joseph Kawuuki we were made aware of the project that was working around cassava transformation in the areas of production and processing of High Quality Cassava Flour (HQCF). In 2015, Joseph linked me to the CAVA Uganda team that took us on, guided, mentored and availed us a lot of information and technical skills on how to boost our cassava business.
Through the team, I was made aware of the Agricultural Technology Transfer (AgriTT) project from which the company could greatly benefit. The Project would facilitate us to set up a modern cassava processing facility using the drying technology from China known as the batch dryer. This efficient equipment comprising of a bin dryer, cassava slicer, peeler, conveyor belt and miller would give Farm Uganda a comparative advantage over her competitors in the production and consistent supply of cassava flour that is of a higher quality and available all year round. We wrote a proposal highlighting our challenges around cassava production and processing to meet the market demand with consistent supply of a quality product. Farm Uganda won the project to which we were required to buy land and construct the processing shed. This cost us over 200 Million Uganda shillings. We successfully completed the construction and around December 2016, the machinery was brought in from China along with 2 Chinese engineers who installed, commissioned and trained the factory operators on how to use it. However, by the time all this was effected, the project life span had more less run out and the latter was done in a limited time of about only 7 days which was not sufficient. Since the training and commissioning of the system were limitedly done, this left us somewhat stuck because after the Chinese team left, the factory technicians with their limited technical know-how run the system and in the process, the original automated boiler got burnt. This befell us around February 2017 after the AgriTT project had closed, leaving us stuck and puzzled until CAVA came in and salvaged the situation.”
The damaged boiler after it was burnt during processing
CAVA intervenes to address the AgriTT batch dryer situation to restore the company’s hope
Sosimu narrates how the Cassava Adding value for Africa Phase Two Project (CAVA 11) eased the company’s troubles. “During the entire process after the boiler was damaged in February 2017 and the machine became ‘a white elephant’, CAVA Uganda never abandoned us, and, since we had worked together under the AgriTT project, the relations came in handy. The CAVA Uganda Country Manager, Mr. Francis Alacho got into endless contact with partners from the Natural Resources Institute(NRI), UK seeking guidance and assistance on the matter, and their response was positive. Around June 2017, NRI sent Engineer Andrew Merchant who visited the sight, assessed the whole system and came up with a detailed report with recommendations to the systems boiler. There on around August 2017, I received good news from Mr. Alacho that CAVA had accepted to replace the boiler at no cost. Plans around this started with Engineer Andrew making a new boiler design that was fabricated in Nairobi and in May 2018, Engineer Andrew came and installed the new boiler along with a water system which was originally not there. He changed the boiler automations into manual setup and thoroughly trained the factory technicians on its operation. Our sincere gratitude towards this milestone goes to CAVA and NRI for restoring our hope past the ‘storm’. We are so excited because we are back in business and I can proudly say that since replacement, the new boiler is working quite well and the system is now fully functional.” says a cheerful Sosimu.
Mr. Sosimu Twesiga (left) shows off the new boiler that Engineer Andrew Merchant installed to ease processing at the factory
NRI Engineer Dr. Andrew Merchant (second left) after successful installation of the new boiler at the Farm Uganda Cassava processing factory. Also in the photo is Farm Uganda Co Director, Mr. Sosimu Twesiga (orange vest) with part of his factory team
Sosimu further speaks about CAVA’s mediations to the factory. “We have been trained in good post- harvest handling and processing of cassava roots into High Quality Cassava Chips/Flour (HQCC/F). CAVA introduced us to the open raised drying technology, provided us with the raised metallic drying racks and trained us in the process to obtain HQCF. We have also been linked to new markets. We are yet to sign a contract to supply 600kgs per day of HQCF to Riham- Harris International for biscuit manufacturing because they highly appreciate the quality. The batch dryer enables sustained supply of raw materials for the available markets since it produces large quantities. It processes about 4.6 tons per shift in a day if the process is well managed. “This machine is very incredible. We complete the entire value chain within just hours in a day. We receive fresh cassava root from the farmers at 8am and by 4:00pm that very day, we are already selling a finished product from what the farmer has sold to us as fresh root. The machine dries the processed chips in a period of between 4 to 6 hours before it is milled into HQCF that meets all the parameters ready for the target markets. And by the way, we often make a meal out of some of the flour and enjoy it as a family here at the factory’ smiles Sosimu.
Left: Sosimu shows off the processed High Quality Cassava Chips and Right; He tastes some of the milled High Quality Cassava Flour ready for the market
Farm Uganda’s Fresh Cassava Roots supply model to sustain fresh root supply
The location identified for the cassava processing facility is in an urban Centre close to cassava production areas. To ensure consistent and timely supply of Fresh Cassava Root (FCR) to the factory, the company established a fresh roots supply model so as to enable continuous production of HQCF to meet the annual marketing targets. The company uses an out-grower scheme to achieve its annual fresh root requirement. It has entered contractual agreements with large scale cassava farmers like David Onya who owns about 300 acres of cassava in Kigumba. Another cassava farmer that supplies fresh root to Farm Uganda is Hully Akiza who owns over 150 acres. Other large-scale farmers have 200 acres plus and these also supply the company with resh cassava roots. The company also engages smallholder farmers that have at least a hectare of cassava with a yield potential of more than 12tons/ha. This has been made possible with the contractual 141 famer groups Farm Uganda has engaged with in Kiryandongo and Masindi districts. Additionally, Farm Uganda owns a 200acre demonstration farm that supplements the factory with fresh root in case of limited supply from the out growers. Other strategies around increasing supply to meet this demand are encouraging and promoting the use of the sun drying technology within the 141 farmer groups. Farm Uganda set up a 3acre demo garden of NASE 14 at the factory to train farmers in Good Agricultural Practices (GAPs) but also avail them multiplication material. “We are also encouraging the famers to venture into value addition and supply the company with already processed High Quality Cassava Chips (HQCC) that we can then mill into flour. These farmers have been extended skills and knowledge in new cassava production and processing technologies. We believe that by building their capacity we are solving issues around unstable supply of fresh roots from the smallholder farmers but also encouraging them to grow into large scale producers of fresh cassava root. These have appreciated and are continuously practicing the new knowledge.”
Benefits since the projects- As Farm Uganda and the people in Kigumba, Kiryandongo district
“The benefits are countless” he recounts and attributes all these achievements to the exposure gained through the projects. “Originally, Farm Uganda didn’t have land, and most of all we didn’t have such a building. My two business partners and I are also looking healthy and good because we have peace of mind since the factory is now fully in business. Our business is also growing, and we now receive many clients. I am also interacting with a number of NGOs working with cassava farmers. I was recently contacted by an NGO working with 15 districts in Northern Uganda to supply Farm Uganda with fresh cassava root. Also, as a company, our sales have increased. Prices by then were at 850 UGX a kilo but we now sell at 1,270 UGX a kilo of HQCF to the brewery and we feel that if we cause an impact, the prices will increase.
He adds that the community is also greatly benefitting. There is access to electricity and an improved road network. ‘when we got here in 2016, the road was impassable. The trucks ferrying the factory’s construction materials faced so many challenges, the road was narrow then and trucks skidded when it rained. But since the project, the Kiryandongo local government improved the road network to ease accessibility.’ Besides that, local farmers now have assured market for their FCR, and the issue of unemployment has been partly checked. The factory employs four permanent staff and casual laborers including 30 women peelers who are each paid UGX 1,000 per wheelbarrow of cassava peeled and also earn an additional UGX 500 per heap of peeled cassava roots washed. The additional casual laborers are youths that are paid about 60,000/- UGX for their labor.
Personal benefits and Company future plans
Sosimu narrates how his life and that of his 2 business associates has since changed. “Through my personal savings, I managed to recently move into my own house in Gayaza on which I spent over 100 Million UGX on construction, my children are in good schools and life is going on well. My other two colleagues are also progressing. Mr. Bamutaze is actually my neighbor in Gayaza at his own place that he constructed at close to 100 Million UGX while Mr. Kalihanyu bought a 50acre plot of land that cost him 50 Million UGX to expand his farming business.
A cheerful Sosimu adds “My team and I sit and strategize on how to move the business and win new clients but also share on each other’s personal growth plans and assist each other to achieve these. We have developed a new factory 10year plan for an extension to a fully- fledged processing unit in one place comprising of the dryers, storage facilities, weighing facilities-weigh bridge, cassava peelers, slicers and milling machines. We want to see this whole area turned into an industrial park and with one control system under one roof, we shall be unstoppable.”
As a pioneer of the technology, Sosimu advises interested investors to highly consider the batch dryer technology “The available dryer is smaller than the capacity of the market and if it will increase beyond that, we still need as more batch dryers as we can get so as to manage the growing market. The product is now needed more than ever. The confectionery market is large and this material is needed in lump sum. So, if someone out there wants this technology, I strongly encourage them to get it’s fantastic, manageable and very cost effective as it uses fuel wood.”
The Cassava Adding Value for Africa Phase Two (CAVA II) Project supports adding value and commercialization of cassava in Africa. CAVA II Uganda has successfully developed value chains for HQCF, by supporting investors to establish HQCF processing sites in Eastern, Northern and Central Uganda. It has also facilitated processors to supply on contract arrangements, HQCF, to end user industries such as rural bakeries, beer breweries and biscuit manufacturers who use it to make composite flour, beer and biscuits respectively. The project is implemented in 4 other African countries of Nigeria, Ghana, Tanzania and Malawi.
CAVA II is funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation through the Natural Resources Institute-University of Greenwich, UK.
Journalists urged to report more on agriculture to trigger total transformation of the sector
Prof Otim-Nape emphasizes to journalists their key involvement in transforming Uganda’s agricultural sector through continuous reporting on the issues about the sector
The Africa Innovations Institute (AfrII) Chairman, Prof. George William Otim-Nape has called on Journalists in Uganda to sensitize and mobilize farmers and other practitioners to adopt modern agricultural practices and urge these to view farming as a business not a hobby. He said that there is need to report more on agriculture so that people can have food on the table. “Media has a key role to change people’s mindset to move away from subsistence agriculture and focus on commercial agriculture.” Says Nape.
He made the remarks this morning when giving an overview of Uganda’s Agricultural Policy and Management: An expert talk at the public policy reporting workshop for journalists at the African Centre for Media Excellence hub in Bunga, kampala.
He also asked them to mobilize youths for attitude and mind-set change in favor of engaging in gainful employment in the agricultural value chains, as well as mobilize the masses on the need for responsible use of the natural resource base so as to achieve sustainable utilization for the current and future generations in endlessness.
Prof. Otim-Nape listens to a journalist during the media workshop at the ACME in Bunga
Professor Nape emphasized that the media needs to understand and appreciate the critical role of the agricultural sector in societal and economic transformation and mobilize the citizens for actions to transform the sector. “As media, you should have a holistic examination of the sector’s challenges, the causes of the failing performance of the sector and advocate for putting in place effective policy, strategies, structural measures and programmes required to get the sector on accelerated growth and transformation”
The media are supposed to play a critical role in the policy process. Journalists can flag problems that require attention, weigh policy options that could be considered broader decision-making to include a diversity of voices from citizens and interest groups, inform the public about what is at stake, as well as evaluate the implementation policy.
The agricultural sector is key to the economy. It employs about 80% of the general population and contributes over 68% of the country’s export earnings. Still, the sector has registered poor performance in the last three decades and has not been able to adequately meet the food and nutritional needs of the people of Uganda.
This calls for a lot more efforts to revolutionize the agricultural sector as the nation strives to achieve Vision 2040.
Over 400 youths in Northern Uganda benefit from AfrII’s youth in agribusiness project
AfrII team (standing) takes youth through importance of savings for financial growth during a financial literacy training in Apac district
A total of 455 youths from the districts of Lira, Kole and Apac in Northern Uganda have benefitted from AfrII’s Youth Leadership in Agriculture (YLA) Project that targets youth involvement in agribusiness ventures to increase their incomes. Under their different youth groups, these have been linked to financial access, availed financial literacy and trained on entrepreneurship and business management, among others.
They have been supported to enrich their saving culture, and linked to financial institutions to access services like credit and loans to ably support their agribusinesses.
More youths are to benefit from the different lined up activities under the YLA project.
Youths engaged in practical group work after one of the Financial training sessions
Overall, YLA targets 4,710 youth to increase their incomes through participation in an inclusive Fresh Cassava Root (FCR) supply model as cassava producers/entrepreneurs and employees in cassava production and processing. The Project is supporting two cassava processing factories using the flash drier technology to build an out grower-Nucleus Farm FCR supply model to enable them meet their FCR annual requirement of 7,200 Metric Tons (MT).
The YLA Project is implemented in partnership with Chemonics International.
ICTs for Nutrition, Agriculture, and Time Use: Can we do better than 24-hour recall by using “innovative methods” of nutrition data collection?
In the over fifty years in which explicit efforts have been made to improve nutrition, there have been countless achievements in global understanding of the causes and consequences of malnutrition, and the actions required to change outcomes for women and children. In these same fifty years, technological advances have changed the modern world. We communicate with friends and family everywhere instantaneously on hand-held devices, and track our location, heart rate, and calories burned real-time. The confluence of smartphones with high resolution cameras and widespread access to social media outlets have made first-person photography ubiquitous.
Limitations of traditional methods. However, in this time, the methods to evaluate nutrition and key drivers of nutrition status, such as women’s time use patterns, have changed relatively little. The most widely used method for collecting data on diet quality and women’s time use is the 24-hour recall. Errors and biases introduced by the methodology are known to compromise data quality and pose a challenge to nutrition research. Direct observation, which is the gold standard, is resource intensive, imposes a serious burden on the participant, and likely influences their behavior. It is impractical for the purposes of programmatic evaluation.
Research aims and methods. The objective of the IMMANA-funded[1] ‘Using Information Communication Technologies (ICTs) to understand the relationships between labour- saving agricultural innovations, women’s time use and maternal and child nutrition outcomes’ study is to develop, validate and apply innovative methods to more accurately measure women’s time allocation and maternal and infant dietary diversity in rural Uganda. A multi-disciplinary team from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, the Natural Resources Institute (NRI) of the University of Greenwich, and the Africa Innovations Institute (AfrII) set out in eastern Uganda to evaluate new tools and methods to capture maternal and child diet diversity and maternal time use data.
Can you collect nutrition and time use data as reliably (or more reliably) using a wearable camera, GPS logger, and automated interactive voice response (IVR) calls every 4 hours (asking about activities and diet) compared to other methods, and in a more cost-effective and less invasive manner? Over two hundred mothers are participating in a 5-day intensive study, including one 15-hour observation day, one 24-hour diet and time use recall, and two days of “innovative methods”. Dietary diversity scores for mothers and children, and calculations of women’s time allocation across key categories using the ICTs will be validated against results from direct observation, in comparison to the same validation for 24-hour recalls versus direct observation. The feasibility and acceptability of the method will also be assessed.
Early lessons learnt. The ICTs are easily available, inexpensive, and already being used for research in high income country contexts. However, devising a method for rural women with low education and literacy, limited access to electricity, limited exposure to TV or mobile phones, etc. to use photos on a tablet to recall their day posed some unexpected challenges, requiring many iterations of the protocol. It was difficult, for example, for some mothers to orient to a first-person perspective of the photos from their wearable camera – that is, to conceptualize where they were relative to the objects, people, and places in the photos. It was also challenging to devise a method that was both effective and rapid, that struck the right balance between enumerator-driven verses participant-driven interpretation of the photos, and to get enumerators and participants to see the photos as a series of activities rather than discrete snapshots.
Next steps. Conclusions from recent studies of the evidence for the role of maternal time allocation on maternal and child nutrition are limited and mixed, in part due to methodological limitations. A viable alternative to recall methods for diet and time use data collection in rural LICs has the potential to be a game-changer for the field of nutrition, and in particular the field of nutrition-sensitive agriculture. We need high quality impact evaluation data to know what works to improve nutrition. With better evidence provided by shrewd deployment of cost-efficient “innovative methods” – with a lower burden on participants and enumerators than traditional methods – we can design better and more cost-effective interventions to improve nutrition outcomes for women and children globally. The team is wrapping up data collection in early 2018; preliminary results are expected by the end of the year.
Supplementary materials:
- [INATU-pic1] Mother wearing the wearable camera and receiving her first automated IVR call while working in the sugarcane field. Key objectives of pilot testing were to rapidly assess the feasibility and acceptability of the suite of innovative tools.
- [INATU-pic2] IMMANA enumerators “code” wearable camera data before heading to the field the review the photos with mother participants.
- [INATU-pic3] This mother uses photos from her previous day (with the wearable camera) on a tablet to help her remember her activities and foods she and her child ate.
[1] Innovative Methods and Metrics for Agriculture and Nutrition Actions (IMMANA) (http://immana.lcirah.ac.uk/) is a research initiative funded by the UK Department for International Development (DFID) and coordinated by the Leverhulme Centre for Integrative Research on Agriculture and Health (LCIRAH). IMMANA aims to accelerate the development of a robust scientific evidence base needed to guide changes in global agriculture and food systems to feed the world’s population in a way that is both healthy and sustainable.
Written by Andrea L. Spray, World Bank Nutrition Consultant and PhD Candidate at LSHTM, with Gwen Varley[1], Jan Priebe1, Joweria Nambooze[2], Elaine Ferguson[3], and Kate Wellard1
[1] Natural Resources Institute (NRI), University of Greenwich (https://www.nri.org/news/2017/innovative-nri-projects-measure-up-tools-for-improved-nutrition)
[2] Africa Innovations Institute (AfrII) (https://www.afrii.org/)
[3] London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) (https://www.lshtm.ac.uk/)
AfrII and partners train over 20 enumerators on data collection for the IMMANA Project
A total of 24 enumerators have been trained on data collection for the project ‘Use of Information Communication Technologies to Understand the Relationships between Labor Saving Agricultural Innovations, Women’s Time Use and Maternal and Child Nutrition Outcomes’ also dubbed the IMMANA Project.
These will be working alongside AfrII project technical staff and partners to investigate whether and how new digital technologies can be used to better collect important information about women’s time use and maternal and infant nutrition in the Eastern and Northern regions of Uganda. 264 households of Mothers of 6 to 23 months old infants living in the two regions have been selected to participate in this study, voluntarily, with each availed a consent form to agree to their involvement in the research.
AfrII nutrition enumerators(bending) calibrate the weighing scale prior to measurement of food at the household. The food consumed by mothers and children is measured to assess impact on nutrition status of the family members.
AfrII’s head of Nutrition, Dr. Joweria Nambooze, also the Project local lead investigator said they will use mobile phones and cameras to track women activities and assess time use efficiency and the impacts on nutrition status of their family. “We are using wearable cameras that will be placed on t-shirts that each mother will be required to wear everyday so as to capture her daily activities from 5:30 am to 9: 30 pm”. Joweria added.
AfrII’s Dr. Joweria Nambooze (with laptop in front) trains the enumerators on how the data collection will be done.
Overall, the project aims to enhance the understanding of the impact of nutrition sensitive agriculture interventions on women and young children to ensure that they have a positive rather than a negative effect on maternal and child well-being. Specifically, the project will:
- assess the feasibility of using a computerized inter-active voice response (IVR) dairy and a GPS linked wearable camera to assess women’s time use and maternal and infant dietary practices.
- determine the relative validity of each of these two methods via 15- hour direct observation; and compare it with traditional recall techniques.
- develop a framework of analysis for assessing the positive and negative impacts of alternative nutrition sensitive interventions, such as recommendations to increase the production and consumption of different foods and/or labor saving technologies on women’s status and wellbeing.
This Project is funded by UKaid through the Innovative Metrics and Methods for Agriculture and Nutrition Actions (IMMANA) and is led by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. It is a collaboration between AfrII, Natural Resources Institute-University of Greenwich (NRI), UK and London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.
Partners visit project areas on progress of their research work on the rice crop
Last week, AfrII hosted partners on the Enhancing Rice Markets in Uganda through Smart Micronutrient Fertilization (ENRICH) Project to field visits to witness progress of the experimental trials established at Doho and Kibimba rice irrigation schemes in the two districts of Butaleja and Bugiri, respectively. The Project under collaborative research efforts aims to address rice nutrient problems through testing and recommending best micro and macronutrient fertilizer combinations and application methods that give best yield results for farmers. The partners interacted with the farmers of both FRGs to share ideas on enhancing nutrient use to increase rice productivity.
Scientists at the Africa Innovations Institute (AfrII) successfully set up experimental trial plots in the two districts with the involvement of Farmer Research Groups (FRGs). These have been trained for their efficient involvement in evaluating the experiments, and selecting the best fertilizer combinations and management practices that will give the best rice yields, and can be integrated into their current management practices.
“In this phase of the research, we engaged a few farmers but we intend to involve all farmers from the different sub counties during the on farm trials.” says Thomas Awio, an agronomist at AfrII. 10 farmers were selected under the FRGs to participate in the experiment.
“By actively engaging the farmers in this research, we want them to learn and efficiently put to use the technologies being extended to them. They can then act as ambassadors of this work and share the knowledge obtained with other farmers outside the project so as to thrive rice productivity” remarks Professor Otim-Nape, the Chairman, AfrII. The Project is extending to farmers’ new ways of growing rice, new varieties and how to grow these with fertilizers.
Farmers under their FRG engage in weeding on the rice trial plot in Kibimba. Looking on Far back is Professor Otim-Nape, the AfrII Chairman and Dr. TjeerdJan Stomph of Wageningen
One of the Partners on the Project, Dr. Christian Dimpka, a fertilizer expert from the International Fertilizer Development Centre (IFDC) hinted that fertilizers are a major driver of yield increase. He advises that micronutrient fertilization be taken more seriously if a farmer is to gain more from their rice farming efforts. “A farmer should always test their soil to determine what type and amount of nutrients to add in the soil. A farmer will increase productivity from 20% to 50% if they apply fertilizer and properly manage the crop.” He adds that if a farmer has been getting 5 dollars on a field, they can get 75 dollars when they ably use fertilizer on the crop.
Another partner on the project, Dr. SenthilKumar Kalimuthu, an agronomist at the Africa Rice Centre advised that farmers should use varieties resistant to disease if they are to gain more from their rice fields. “In the experiment at Doho, we are using the K98 variety because it is blast susceptible. We have observed that by applying nutrients, both micro and macro, the fertilizers can reduce the incidence of blast diseases on this variety.” Says Kalimuthu.
Dr. Kalimuthu of Africa Rice observes a rice plant on the trial plots at Doho rice irrigation scheme
Farmers have appreciated the technologies and are excited in utilizing them to sustain productivity of other crops apart from rice. Ms. Faridah Akwi, the Vice Chairperson of the FRG in Kibimba, Bugiri, happily relays their gratitude. “We appreciate AfrII and partners for making us part of this research work. We intend to share the knowledge and skills extended to us through this project to other rice farmers.” “We have been trained on the best technologies including row planting, timely transplanting, weeding and application of fertilizer and micro nutrients to the fields to improve yield productivity.” Farida says.
Farmers in Uganda nearly use no fertilizers on rice yet the use of fertilizers comes with a number of advantages like increasing yields (0.8 to 1.5 t/ha – lowland rice) and (1.5 to 2.5 t/ha-upland rice). Micronutrients have been reported to enhance uptake efficiency of NPK, improving rice grain yields, profit margins, grain nutritional quality and disease tolerance. The different fertilizers being evaluated are nitrogen (N), Phosphorus (P), Potassium (K), Zinc (Zn), Manganese (Mn), Boron (B), sulphur (S) and a commercial micronutrient fertilizer Elfert-F.
The ENRICH project funded by the Government of the Netherlands is a partnership between Africa Innovations Institute (AfrII), Virtual Fertiliser Research Centre of the International Fertilizer Development Centre(VFRC-IFDC)-Washington DC, Africa Rice Centre (Africa Rice)-Tanzania, Wageningen University (WUR)-Netherlands, International Soil Reference and Information Centre (ISRIC)-World Soil Information, Netherlands, FICA Seeds Limited, and Wind Wood Millers Limited.
Are benefits from agricultural intensification related to household income, level of education, and gender? – results from 758 households in Uganda, Rwanda, Tanzania and Ghana
By Robert Shaffer, Vital Signs Fellows &Scientists_DSSG 2017 ,Africa Innovations Institute,Tanzania Forest Conservation Group,Wildlife Conservation Society Rwanda,The Council for Scientific and Industrial Research Ghana
This analysis is a result of the collaboration between the eScience Insitute Data Science for Social Good Program and Vital Signs. Learn more about this program here.
In developing countries, agricultural intensification (defined as increased input per unit of land) is a key phenomenon of interest. These inputs may include land, fertilizers, pesticides and labor including use of agricultural machinery. Increasing agricultural intensification can contribute to aggregate-level increases in food availability and economic performance. However, these benefits may not be evenly distributed, largely based on unequal access to key inputs, either across landscapes or countries or according to some demographic feature of interest.
For the purposes of this study, we focus on investigating gender- and income-based equity outcomes as they relate to availability and usage of agricultural inputs. Previous studies examining the relationship between gender and input usage have returned mixed results; [1], for example, found organic fertilizer usage is substantially higher in male-headed households than female-headed households. By contrast, usage of improved fallows is largely unrelated to gender of household head. Here, we extend this investigation across an array of agricultural intensification indicators, and examine how usage of these inputs varies by gender and country in the Vital Signs dataset. We conclude by examining the relationship between input usage and landscape-level income and education equity outcomes.
Prominent cassava farmer sets up millions worth cassava commercial building
Mr. Akuttu in front of his millions worth cassava commercial house
Mr. Akutu Augustine is one man whose tale with cassava is quite admirable. He is earning big both as a cassava farmer and a cassava processor of the High Quality Cassava Flour (HQCF). He is also highly recognized as influential in the community and is praised by not only by the community persons but also the local area/ community leaders of the church and political statures.
Mr. Akutu is reaping big as a cassava farmer. He makes proceeds worth millions from selling cassava seed. “I harvested 3,500 bags of cassava stems in 2016 and earned 170 million, this year I supplied 1,275 bags and earned 60 million Uganda Shillings” says Akutu. From the sales made last year, he bought land and also bought a tipper/ lorry that he now uses to ferry cassava from his farm to the processing site at his home. He additionally set up new structures at his home in Amuria district, bought more 4 acres of land that cost him about 64 Million UGX on which to grow more cassava. He also bought an additional 80 acres to plant the NASE 14 and NAROCASS 1 varieties.
Akutu’s highlight is the newly established cassava house that he has set up in Soroti town, Eastern Uganda. “I bought the plot last year in 2016 at 40 Million Uganda Shillings but expenses shot up to about 52 million” remarks Akutu. This year, the earnings he made from cuttings he supplied on contract to the Government NAADS Programme are what he used to begin setting up the structure. His plans are to use part of the commercial building to exhibit cassava products for sale. The back area will be used as lodging quarters.
The CAVA II team inspects Akutu’s cassava house still under construction
“I want this building to be a lodge /guest house that will earn me some money. I intend to save up to be able to obtain the cassava flash dryer. I have all this cassava all over Eastern Uganda and I know that we need a cassava factory here” says a smiling Akutu. His cassava gardens of over 500 acres are spread out all through the districts of Amuria, Soroti and Serere.
In an interview with AfrII’s Communications Officer, last year, Mr. Akuttu disclosed his plans to set up the commercial building. The 15 roomed building is worth over 100 Million Uganda Shillings and he intends to finish construction this year for it to be operational.
Prof. Kolawole of FUNAAB launches the cassava house and congratulates Akutu on his achievement
The CAVA II Project Director, Professor Kolawole Adebayo launched Akutu’s cassava house during a recent visit to Uganda on progress of the CAVA II Project implementation in the country.
The CAVA II Project is implemented in five African Countries of Nigeria, Malawi, Ghana, Tanzania and Uganda to increase the incomes of smallholder farmers (SHFs) and community processors through participation in profitable and sustainable value –added cassava chains. In Uganda, specifically, it is implemented in parts of Northern, Eastern and Central Uganda in 21 districts with aim to create by 2019 an annual demand for 69,030 tons of Fresh Cassava Roots (FCRs) from smallholder farmers and incomes from sale of fresh roots and processing by smallholders will generate at least USD 4.5 Million per annum for rural communities.
CAVA II is funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The project receives technical back stopping from the Natural Resources Institute-University of Greenwich (NRI) and the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA).
