Subsistence & Sustainability:
‘Model Homes’ Redefine Agriculture and Livelihoods for Farmers in Uganda
Written by: Richard Mugambe & Marion Apio. Film and Photography: Richard Mugambe.
Monday, September 16, 2024
For about 20 years, Sylvia Namutebi and her neighbors in Musomoko, a village in Uganda’s central district of Buikwe had been pleased with how they had farmed their land.
In this community, located about 60 kilometers (37 miles) east of the capital Kampala the principal source of food and livelihood was and continues to be subsistence farming.
Farmers had depended on lackluster practices which provided minimal yields with little to sell for income and less to keep for food.
“One day, a group of individuals asked us to a farming workshop, which changed the way I look at farming. It showed me how much more I could get out of my farmland by making a few adjustments,” she says.
Sylvia Namutebi harvests coffee from her mixed farm. Photo by Richard Mugambe.
The ‘individuals’ that invited Namutebi and her colleagues to the workshop were affiliated with Regenerate Africa, a Ugandan-based climate advocacy organization.
The organization partners with government, the private sector, and civil society organizations to train local communities to appreciate the relationship between their health, socioeconomic success, and the environment.
“I learned practices like the application of organic fertilizers and pesticides, trenching to control erosion, and agroforestry by integrating fruit trees and cash crops like cocoa on my farm to replace tree cover while getting economic value out of them,” admits Namutebi.
This multi-sectoral community improvement model taps from an international best-practice concept called Population, Health, and Environment (PHE). The concept is a development approach that recognizes the interdependent links between local communities, their health, and the natural resources upon which they depend.
In Uganda, PHE came into action as organizations started to recognize that communities could not engage in adequate stewardship over their environment and natural resources unless their basic needs like health, nutrition and economics were met.
Regenerate Africa is a member of the National Population Health and Environment Network, which was formed by numerous organizations that have embraced and are implementing the PHE model on behalf of the Government of Uganda.
Their operations are overseen and monitored by The National Population Council (NPC)
A farmer in her backyard vegetable. The model trains them to grow vegetables to improve household nutrition using eco-friendly approaches. Photo by Richard Mugambe.
The Model Homes
The project starts with the selection of a last-mile community.
The organization then relies on the Local Council (LC) system to select community members who will be trained in sustainable natural resource utilization, nutrition, hygiene, and birth control.
Selected residents are trained for a period of a year, in which they are also required to implement farming initiatives highlighted in the training.
They are monitored and mentored by the organization to meet at least 80% of the model standards. Successful households are then defined as model homes from which other community members can benchmark.
“This is the last-mile approach to environmental and health problems within vulnerable communities outside the scope of state programs. This strategy complements government efforts by rolling out sustainable livelihood programs in these areas,” explains Niona Nakuya Kasekende, the Program Officer, Population, Health, Environment, and Development at Regenerate Africa.
Before implementation, a community needs assessment survey is undertaken by the organization to determine the level of effort that potential host communities have made.
“We evaluate the prevalence and incidence of environment-related diseases like malaria, cholera, and typhoid. We also count the number of households practicing climate-smart farming like agroforestry. We also look for facilities and structures like kitchen gardens, tippy taps, pit latrines, kitchens, and other indicators before we see it fit to deploy,” Kasekende adds.
A community water point. Water is among the Regenerate Africa’s community needs assessment areas. Photo by Richard Mugambe.
Regenerate Africa also disseminates the sustainable community gospel through messaging.
In the SMS system, host communities are urged to cultivate and manage kitchen gardens to improve household nutrition and food security as well as take part in social development initiatives like disease prevention and control and birth control.
One such successful area is the nutrition and leafy vegetables campaign, where backyard gardens are helping to improve diet in communities. This approach addresses the long distances between farm fields and households, which have contributed to dietary problems in rural communities.
The program features lessons about water, sanitation, and hygiene, such as handwashing, drying racks, correct waste disposal procedures such as composting and separation, pit latrines, and boiling drinking water.
To protect the environment, host communities are encouraged to adopt responsible and sustainable use procedures that ensure the survival of both them and their ecosystem.
The bundle contains information on embracing safe renewable energy, tree planting and conservation, and using energy-saving stoves to replace and lessen reliance on firewood.
At its height is a desire to create a home that strikes a perfect equilibrium between the occupants’ demands, their health, and a thriving environment on which they rely for survival.
A thriving banana garden propagated by eco-friendly farming practices as recommended to farmers by Regenerate Africa. Photo by Richard Mugambe.
Selling the PHE Idea
Buikwe of old was a fishing village. However, the lake’s declining fish resource over time, caused by varying circumstances necessitated an alternative for its dependents. Agriculture, which they practiced in moderation, became an attractive choice.
The change ushered in more pressures on the new farmer environment; deforestation for timber and cropland, extended gestation periods for high-yield crops like coffee, cocoa, and vanilla, among many others.
These challenges made the newly created farming community more open to a polarizing message like the one in Regenerate Africa’s training package.
Ronald Nsubuga, a resident of Zitwe Parish, Ssi sub-county in the Buikwe district, was one of the first to receive this instruction. Before that training, Nsubuga had a 20-year subsistence agricultural background and lifestyle.
“Their message was quite welcome to me. They discussed crop and animal husbandry, as well as household hygiene and environmental protection. But what drew me in was the agro-forestry.” Nsubuga recalls.
The farmer adds that it was from this message that he drew inspiration to transform his estimated 20-acre farmland into a cash cow.
“I now own a pig farm, a coffee and cocoa plantation, matooke, and an acre of sugarcane. The coffee and cocoa only generate profit periodically, but I posture the long wait with extra earnings from selling sugarcane and piglets from my farm!” The farmer adds with pride
A fishing canoe at a local landing site in Buikwe district. Photo by Richard Mugambe.
A system of the people, from the people
Regenerate Africa was convinced that for the program to grow beyond its pioneers, it should establish a peer mentorship and learning structure.
“We teach the concept to host communities through quarterly trainings in the first year. We then pick a select group of farmers who have masterfully and successfully replicated the model home concept. These farmers undertake additional training before graduating as trainers of trainers.” explains Regenerate Africa Programs Lead Niona Nakuya Kasekende.
Ronald Nsubuga, a farmer and local leader in Buikwe, was the ideal medium for spreading the message of change to his followers and farming peers. When the message touched him, he chose to model his home, farm, and lifestyle as an example for the people around him.
“My leadership position contributes in part to my success in what I do. I rely on my accomplishments in the past four years under this program as an inspiration to those around me,” a proud Nsubuga affirms.
According to Kasekende, this was the best approach to ensure that the program ran and thrived without depending on external funding. The leaders, who, like those around them, were farmers with a loyal following, provided an ideal basis for the message of transformation.
The message radiates downwards through the train in a trainer transmission structure, with the recipients becoming messengers who onboard their neighbors into the program.
The champions are a semi-autonomous group under the watchful eye of the Regenerate Africa implementation team. And they are born and cultivated by a system that alters their mindsets and lifestyle to become model homes with time.
“A PHE champion can only be named after fulfilling 80% of the indicators specified in the preliminary survey. At the end of the exercise, we look for more than just the indicators and installations. We also assess and question the change in you. Recognizing and experiencing change in your life is the foundation of the desire to train and improve the lives of others, using your lifestyle as a yardstick.”
But every system has drawbacks. The PHE model is still inadequate at extensively discussing the difficulties in the Buikwe farming community.
“The PHE Champion Transmission Model was designed to lessen the program’s cost burden. But it cannot entirely alleviate the financial pressure they endure. Champions still need monetary support to reach and organize new farmers into the system,” acknowledges Kasekende.
At the state level, this model ranks among the first of its kind, and as such, it risks policy red tape.
Given that the idea’s pioneers have little to no evidence supporting the merit of government and private funders’ aid, it is difficult to develop a robust financing landscape to support it.
Furthermore, national resource mobilization has mostly been achieved at sectoral level. Players such as Regenerate Africa must establish partnerships cutting across sectors to allow for the development of state policies and programs that will benefit and impact those in need of the service.
A farmer feeds her chicken in Busomoko village. The model homes system encourages community members to engage in different forms of farming to improve their livelihood. One such area is poultry farming. Photo by Richard Mugambe.
A growing Impact
Beyond the farm, Nsubuga confesses that the message made him reflect on his home. The father of 15 and LC2 chairman of Zitwe Parish admits that he contributed to the many family members under his care by making it challenging for his wife to abstain. The family planning message encouraged him to lower the number of newborns in his home, freeing him to redirect his energy and resources toward providing a better life for the children he had fathered.
“The revisions in my lifestyle have allowed me to sustain higher standards for my wife and our 15 children. All our school-aged children are in school. We have only been able to do so because of our farm’s economic success. The surplus, which fully covers the numbers under our care, has allowed my family to eat a healthy diet.”
According to the National Population Council’s evaluation of the Population Health and Environment Approach in 2023, research done in host communities shows an increase in adherence to family planning messages.
The findings showed a 5.5% increase in message acceptance, up from 55% prior to the beginning of the PHE program to 60.5% within a year. The study attributed the rise in part to an increase in male involvement, with respondents expressing a desire to better care for their families, as Nsubuga confirms.
The same report observed a shift in the mentality of the message’s recipients. This, it suggests, was responsible for the farmers’ attitude toward the environment and their subsequent endeavors.
“I own a 20-acre farmland. I use trees as border marks to demarcate my land. I limit how many trees grow within the farm to allow light to reach the crops, but still maintain enough shade for them to thrive. The trees on the border serve as windbreaks,” Nsubuga adds.
The farmer makes mention of his ability to view the environment differently after accepting the PHE message. While sugarcane farming is one of the most profitable trades in the area, PHE adherents like him have chosen more sustainable agricultural methods that yield less revenue while guaranteeing the environment’s preservation for future generations.
He views himself as the first sacrifice and an example of a newer culture of selfless leaders and farmers.
“Greed is why we lost the fishing livelihood option in the first place. Bad fishing and selfishness cost us an entire industry! If we carry forward with an attitude of destruction, our forests, just like the lake will not fall far behind,” the farmer warns
George Mubiru, a tomato farmer is pioneering sustainable farming practice in one of his gardens. Photo by Richard Mugambe.
A slow forming but sure change
Notwithstanding its advantages, the program has yet to meet the demands of all farmers who encounter it.
George Mubiru has been farming tomatoes for 25 years. In 2021, he set up camp in Buikwe District, dreaming of a better life.
For him, the message was just not right for his craft.
“The champions have reached me. Their PHE messages encourage organic farming techniques as an alternative to pesticides and factory-produced fertilizer. But those techniques do not fully rid the garden of blight and fungus,” laments Mubiru.
For his craft, Mubiru mixes organic and synthetic fertilizers like chicken liter and NPK to add value to his soil and crop. He knows the effects all too well…
“We only sprinkle NPK on the edges of the holes because it is very corrosive. Direct contact is also lethal. The fertilizer feels cold to the touch, and if you are unfortunate enough to touch it, you will experience a numbness in the fingers for some time.”
Mubiru is however not completely walled off to the PHE message. He admits that whatever challenges he has faced in the past have forced him to acquire even more knowledge.
“I sometimes plant in anticipation of rainfall. Instead, the sun scorches my crop. I have no means to irrigate my large farm. The yield has dropped compared to when I moved here 3 years ago.”
The farmer admits that understanding weather patterns and using organic fertilizer alternatives to synthetic ones like NPK would reduce his expenses and increase his earnings.
Despite its weaknesses, Regenerate Africa believes that continuous enhancements to the program should convince farmers like Mubiru and others who have yet to hear their message to join their cause.
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