A group of 1000 farmers in Katakwi district have been equipped with skills in climate adaptation and resilient agricultural practices by Food and Agricultural Organization [FAO].
The farmers included 538 women and 362 men drawn from villages within Toroma and Magoro Sub-counties, both found in Katakwi.
The farmers have been trained in the production; processing, packaging, and marketing of their products to enable them make more money out of production that can be more resilient and more adaptive. It is envisaged that with these skills, they will be able to make more investments on their farms since they will be having the money they can invest in programs like irrigation and other good farming practices.
Officiating at the pass-out, Vice President Rtd. Maj. Jessica Alupo who is also Woman Member of Parliament for Katakwi district, urged the farmers to embrace better farming practices to increase household income.
She commended FAO for the continued support to Uganda in fighting against the impact of climate change in the country.
She called upon the trained farmer groups to extend such skills to other farmers in their communities to maximize on the number of people that practice good farming practices can increase
“I want to assure you that money for Parish Development Model program is already in the district coffers. Disbursement will begin tomorrow Friday following President Yoweri Museveni’s order. I want to urge you to embrace the program because its intended to fight household poverty at the parish level” she said, adding that government is doing its best to end the Karamojong cattle-rustling problem.
Meanwhile, Dickens Ogwang, FAO’s Field Coordinator, says Uganda is still stuck with the challenge of not being resilient to climate and attributed it to lack of knowledge by a bigger number of people about climate change and what to do to mitigate its impact.
“Ugandans have knowledge about climate change but only a fraction is practicing what they know. This makes the fight against climate change impact complicated” he noted.
He said for Uganda to be resilient, people need to have the knowledge, skills and institutional capacity, adding that this can be achieved in working in a group. He said farmers need to have economic adaptation capacity to be able to do investment on their own farms and must also move away from mere production to value addition (Value chain development).
Ariko Onyait, the coordinator of Katakwi District Famers Association [KADIFA] said that the skills the farmers obtained in the farm field schools are going to help much in extending knowledge about climate change resilient farming practices.
The farmers who included among others Walter Elungat the LC2 Chairperson of Ominya Parish in Toroma Count, applauded FAO and KADIFA for equipping them with skills that have enabled them to add value to their products. They said this will help them maximize their profits out of the products they produce,
