East African farmers set to benefit from the newly-launched Farmer’s Caravan 2022.
The management of Participatory Ecological Land Use Management (PELUM) Uganda secretariat, the Knowledge Hub for Organic Agriculture in Eastern Africa (KHEA), and Knowledge Centre for Organic Agriculture in Africa (KCOA) project teams on Sunday kick-started a four-day Farmer’s Caravan 2022, where they shall be touring different organic farms.
Themed Sharing Organic Agriculture Knowledge and Experience, the KCOA-KHEA Farmer’s Caravan main objective is to stimulate debate, understanding, and appreciation of organic farming practices for further strengthening Uganda’s food and agricultural systems, towards resilient and sustainable productivity, better consumer health, improved income and livelihoods for smallholder farmers.
“The caravan follows the overall objective of gaining practical knowledge, skills, and approaches through peer-to-peer exchanges and learning from farmer-led enterprises and all this will be climaxing with the launch of the Continental Digital Knowledge platform,” said Joshua Aijuka, PELUM Uganda Country Coordinator.
The caravan will bring together various stakeholders ranging from farmers, multipliers drawn from all the four regions of Uganda, media team, a representative from Ministry of Agriculture, youth, modal farmers, KHEA trained multipliers and progressive entrepreneurs in the agri-food sector, especially those involved in the production, value addition, agro-input supply and agro-processing in organic agriculture.
Francis Nsanga, KHEA Project Manager, said Organic Agriculture combines tradition, innovation, and science to benefit the shared environment and promote fair relationships and good quality of life for all involved. “This is the official International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements (IFOAM-Organics International) definition of organic agriculture, one of the international partners on the KCOA-KHEA project. Today we are gathered here to flag off this event as it involves a number of activities such as touring different organic farms in different parts of the Country”, he said.
Nsanga said their teams in the Caravan shall be gathering the voices of the farmers, speaking about the organic farming practices they have employed as a result of the KHEA trainings under the KCOA-KHEA project and profile on the Continental Digital Platform and other networks. Several activities have been undertaken by PELUM Uganda besides farmer training to this effect, including participation in national and regional food fairs, gathering and documentation of validated knowledge products, Participatory Guarantee System (PGS) training, and certification.
“Like many other projects, we have partnered with like-minded organisations,” adding that they will be joined by a cross-section of Rwandan, Kenyan, and Tanzanian. Madagascar is expected to follow shortly thereafter.
The physical event will be invite-only with virtual attendance open to all. The event will be streamed live on KHEA’s and PELUM Uganda’s social media platforms, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube.”
