Our region of Busoga is currently the most dreaded place in Uganda, as far as poverty is concerned. But the main challenge that orchestrates poverty in our region, is the absence of reliable markets for rural poor smallholder farmers.

Our region Busoga is currently the most dreaded place in Uganda, when it comes to ultra poverty. But the biggest challenge that orchestrates poverty, is the inability of rural farmers to access markets for their produce. The only crop that has a relatively available market in our region, is sugarcane. Accordingly, nearly every household here grows sugarcane, and today, Busoga is the biggest sugarcane producer in Uganda.

The most immediate result has been threefold: 1) increased hunger, as said here, here, and here, because every household is growing sugarcane, yet sugarcane can’t be eaten as food 2). increased poverty, because sugarcane takes two years to mature and 3) even when the sugarcane finally matures, there are times when prices fall to the extent that a farmer virtually earns nothing, because every farmer is growing the same crop.

Our region Busoga, right now, is the most dreaded place in Uganda, when it comes to chronic poverty. But the main challenge that orchestrates poverty here, is the inability of rural farmers to access markets for their produce. The only crop that has a relatively available market in our region, is sugarcane. Accordingly, nearly every household here grows sugarcane, and today, Busoga is the biggest sugarcane producer in Uganda.

reliable will not only help with postharvest handling, or in building market linkages, but also, it will even help in making our overall work with rural farmers self-sustaining.

For detailed information on local people circumstances in our region, and how our intended grain facility will help, please go to this page (or see this post on the EA forum).

Our region of Busoga is Uganda’s poorest. The main challenge however  is the absence of reliable markets for rural poor farmers. The only crop that has a relatively ready market in our region, is sugarcane. Accordingly, nearly every household here grows sugarcane, and today, Busoga is the biggest sugarcane producer in Uganda.

Our region of Busoga is Uganda’s most impoverished. Our biggest challenge, though, is the absence of reliable markets for rural smallholder farmers. The only crop that has a relatively ready market in our region, is sugarcane. Accordingly, nearly every household here grows sugarcane, and today, Busoga is the biggest sugarcane producer in Uganda.

The most immediate result has been threefold: 1) increased hunger, as said herehere, and also here, because every household is growing sugarcane, yet sugarcane can’t be eaten as food 2). increased poverty, because sugarcane takes two years to mature and 3) even when it finally matures, there are times when prices fall to the extent that a farmer literally earns nothing, because every farmer is growing the same crop.

The most immediate result has been threefold: 1) increased hunger, as said here, here, and here, because every farmer is growing sugarcane, yet sugarcane can’t be eaten as food 2). increased poverty, because sugarcane takes two years to mature and 3) even when the sugarcane finally matures, there are times when prices fall to the extent that a farmer virtually earns nothing, because every farmer is growing the same crop.

At present, the only crop for which we can find a reliable market is white sorghum.

Since 2019, the UCF has trained many rural poor farmers in Kamuli and Buyende districts, on white sorghum. We have also befriended 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).