Goal one:  Size of Long Island.

Help the UCF cover a region the size of Long Island (New York), with white sorghum.

Since 2019, the UCF has trained many rural farmers in Kamuli & Buyende, in eastern Uganda, on white sorghum. Our goal right now, is to expand this work and cover every village in Kamuli & Buyende, a region the size of Long Island, with white sorghum.

Kamuli & Buyende are two twin districts in Busoga — Uganda’s most impoverished region. To expand our sorghum project and cover every village in Kamuli & Buyende, all that we need is the postharvest handling and storage capability to handle our farmers’ produce on such a scale. Specifically, all that we are asking of you is to help us install a grain cleaning, drying and storage facility that shall both enhance our postharvest handling capacity, while linking our farmers’ produce with many reputable buyers.

 

Impact:

Our region Busoga is Uganda’s poorest. Being a place where every household depends on agriculture, though, the main challenge every household here faces, is the absence of reliable markets for our produce. Our intended grain facility will not only help with postharvest handling, but also, it will build new market linkages for our farmers’ produce. Above all, it will help make our overall work with rural farmers self-sustaining.

Currently, the UCF provides all our farmers with free initial inputs (seed, tarpaulins, and others), because many can’t afford them. This facility will change this by making many big buyers to view us as strategic partners, enabling our farmers to get better prices. This will give these farmers the self-motivation to produce more, and in turn, the ability to use their own incomes to secure the needed inputs, making our work self-sustaining.

The presence of this facility will also in itself be an assurance to all local farmers of the presence of a ready market (including those farmers whom the UCF hasn’t been supporting directly), giving them the self-urge to secure the needed inputs on their own — catalyzing our goal of covering every village in Kamuli/Buyende with white sorghum.

 

 

Goal two:  12 for 100% ADMIN self sufficiency. 

That’s, multiplying production on the UCF’s 12 acre premises using irrigation and a little bit of permaculture, to ensure that 100% of our administrative overheads are met by us.

The ability to expand our work with rural poor farmers, and to operate with continuity, depends on our ability to cover our administrative costs on a sustained basis. However, like any other small African nonprofit, the UCF simply has no reliable source of support.

Currently, nearly ALL the support that we use to run our work comes from small online donations. And as said earlier, most of this money is spent on inputs (seed, tarpaulins, pesticides, fertilizers, spray pumps etc) that the UCF provides to all our target farmers totally free, only as a hand-up. But the day-to-day costs of running this work are huge.

And now, with our new goal of expanding our sorghum project to cover every village in Kamuli & Buyende, a region the size of Long Island, our overheads will be even higher. Help us put the UCF’s 12-acre premises to maximum use, using a combination of irrigation and permaculture approaches, to ensure that 100% of our overheads are covered by the UCF itself, i.e., from the income on our 12 acres. 

 

Impact:

With 100% overhead self-sufficiency, we will be able to expand our work to new rural communities anytime, operate with continuity, and spend 100% of the money that we raise from our charitable supporters on inputs for those farmers who need a hand-up.

To achieve 100% overhead self-sufficiency, all we need is year-round production on our 12 acres using irrigation, and putting each available space on our 12 acres to use by integrating an array of crops and livestock using permaculture approaches — including a chicken forest. Needed support: $101,968. A detailed breakdown is available here.