At present, the only crop for which we can find a reliable market is white sorghum.
Since 2019, the UCF has trained a good number of rural poor farmers in Kamuli and Buyende, on white sorghum. We have also engaged the people at Uganda Breweries, and these have offered a ready market for our farmers’ sorghum. Our sorghum seed is also sourced directly from Uganda Breweries, through their seed partner GrainPulse.
This marks the first time farmers in our region, who already have no market for all other crops, and who aren’t part of any value chains, will access a mainstream market in the food industry. In hindsight, the main challenge that keeps every farmer in our region in extreme poverty is the absence of reliable markets for our produce. So, by providing rural farmers with initial inputs, and building market linkages, we are both giving these farmers a hand-up, & placing them on a self-sufficient path from poverty.
Please also note that this project is completely charitable, and we have no way of running it on a self-sustaining business model, as most farmers are unable to secure the needed inputs on their own, at least at the beginning. So, the UCF is providing each of our participating farmers with the needed inputs (seed; training, tarpaulins for clean post-harvest handling, etc) all free. Our idea is: if a farmer successfully grows sorghum for 4 straight planting seasons, they would then be in a position to secure all the needed inputs on their own, in subsequent seasons. So, the UCF’s current goal is to provide each of our farmers with the needed inputs for 4 seasons, or two years.
To learn about the current status of our sorghum project as of 2022, please go here.
And lastly, below are a few photos from this work in previous seasons (2019 – 2020).