FOOD SECURITY AND INCOME IMPROVEMENT
Food security and income still boss a threat to many communities in Africa more so sub-Sahara Africa and Uganda in particular.
Agriculture being the backbone of Ugandans economy, contributing 80% to the country’s gross domestic product, 85 % of the export earnings and provides employment to over 80% and providing most of the raw materials to the mainly agro based industries should therefore be given a priority.
The fact that Ugandan agriculture is dominated by subsistence farmers who use a hand hoe as a predominant technology for production in 95% of the farming Activities still face a lot of problems because, these categories of farmers are not able to invest in improved seeds, pests and disease control strategies, fertilizer applications for soil nutrient replenishment, improved storage structures and management practices.
These factors above are responsible for low yield and poor farm products.
The traditional farming methods which are obsolete and largely unproductive, has also led to soil erosion, soil exhaustion, low productivity and high sustained poverty levels.
Our farmers therefore lack knowledge and skills concerning better crop and animal management practices, soil conservation, pest and disease control measures due to limited extension services as such there is poor cultivation and low produce.
Major cash crops like coffee, cassava, bananas, potatoes, cotton ,Arabica and Robusta coffee were once good food and cash crops but due to pests and diseases ,they have been rendered extinct.
Therefore due to poor productivity farmers have to buy food throughout the year or lack of storage facilities among many households also causes many parts of Africa with Uganda in particular to suffer from food insecurity
GOCASI therefore identifies and trains subsistence farmers, forms them into self-help groups and conducts the training in improved crop and animal management practices, soil conservation and management.
Since 2014 about 10,000 farmers have been trained in improved crop&animal management practices and supported with improved crop and plant varieties .
The organization identifies and selects peasant farmers and forms them into self-help groups and carries out training in soil and water conservation management, improved crop management practices, post harvest handling and management and we support them with farm in puts and seeds.
This enables them to boost production in order to have sustainable food and income.
We endeavor to address the route cause of food insecurity among many households and this is lack of knowledge and skills about improved crop and animal management practices, poor storage facilities to store farmers produce during time of harvest and this has resulted them to buy food through out the year.
Since the start of the organization, about 4000 farmers have been trained in improved crop and animal management practices and about 2000 have been supported with farm inputs, seeds, stem cuttings to boost production and ensure sustainability.
In our endeavor to alleviate food shortage, the farmer in the picture in the district of Budaka was supported with sorghum seeds which is pending harvest.
Plantation of cassava in Manafwa district, the beneficiaries of this were out of GOCASI Agro-cultural training and supported with cassava cuttings.
One of the beneficiaries of the GOCASI food security and income improvement project poses for a photo in his garden in Budaka District.
Hunger
Alarming situation hunger kills nearly 50 people in karamoja, over 2181 households waiting to die
In Karamoja, one of Uganda’s poorest regions, anxious mothers clutch bone-thin infants in a malnutrition ward, terrified their child could be the next to succumb to starvation.
One of Maria Logiel’s youngsters, too weak to sit up, bears tell tale skin lesions caused by extreme hunger. The other, strapped to her back, stares gauntly from sunken eyes.
“I came with these two because they were badly off, and going to die,” Logiel told AFP at a hospital in Karamoja, a vast and isolated northeastern border region afflicted by drought, disease and armed bands. “(But) I left two others home, and I worry that by the time I get back, they’ll be no more,” the 30-year-old mother said.
More than half a million people are going hungry in Karamoja, approximately 40 percent of the population of this neglected, long-suffering rural region between South Sudan and Kenya.
Natural disasters, plagues of locusts and armyworms, and raids by heavily armed cattle thieves have left little to eat.
As food has become ever more scarce, Karamoja’s most vulnerable residents are struggling to survive.
“In three months we have lost more than 25 children under five due to the malnutrition,” said Doctor Sharif Nalibe, the district health officer in Kaabong, one of Karamoja’s worst-hit districts.
“And these were the ones under our care, but (who) were brought at the last minute to the hospital. But there are many who die and (are) not reported in the communities.”
Starvation in Karamoja is going largely unnoticed as higher-profile crises, including looming famine in the Horn of Africa, and the war in Ukraine, compel global attention.
Even in Uganda, the desperation is out of sight, unfolding 500 kilometres (310 miles) from the capital, Kampala, in a part of the country long written off as harsh and volatile.
Across the region, about 91,600 children and 9,500 pregnant or breastfeeding women are suffering from acute malnutrition and need treatment, according to the latest assessment by humanitarian agencies.
“In terms of acute malnutrition … this year we have experienced the worst that we have had in the last 10 years,” said Alex Mokori, a nutrition specialist from UNICEF, which is screening for malnutrition in Karamoja with local authorities.
Logiel said she resorted to foraging to put food on the table, but the wild plants often made her children sicker.
In desperation, she would sometimes buy the mealy dregs from a popular locally made sorghum brew called “malwa”, even if the effect was mildly alcoholic.
Half a litre of this residue goes for about 40 US cents – often more than she could afford.
“Often we failed to raise money and the children sleep hungry,” Logiel said.
Karamojongs of North eastern Uganda who are affected by acute food shortage
With a porous border and thriving illicit trade, Karamoja has endured decades of tit-for-tat armed cattle raids between nomadic clans that wander the lawless frontier between Uganda, South Sudan and Kenya.
These incursions make life even harder for Karimojong communities entirely reliant on livestock and crops to survive, and government interventions to disarm rustlers have not stopped the cycles of violence.
The erratic effects of a changing climate – Karamoja is experiencing harsh drought, but last year witnessed damaging floods and landslides – have only multiplied the hardships bearing down on the region.
“Now, with the prolonged drought, and cattle rustlers, and communities left with no source of livelihood, we are heading for the worst,” said Nalibe, the Kaabong district health officer.
For some, the worst has already happened.
Nangole Lopwon went to sell firewood in a nearby village and left her hungry twins with one of her older children, only to return and find one of the young ones had died.
“What could I do? The child was not sick. It was purely hunger that killed him,” said the mother of five from Kaabong.
Now she, too, is malnourished, and the surviving twin is in a dire state.
“Even this one is about to die,” she wailed.