Northern Uganda Self Sufficiency Project (NUSSP)
Agribusiness and Food Security
Under this program:
- We initiated a piggery farm and Bee Farming for the community.
- Identified land for project expansion, development and scale-up.
- Acquired a new tractor then ploughed the fields and planted 30 acres of corn and 9 acres of rice this year 2023.
Agriculture is the backbone of our economy in Northern Uganda where it is estimated that 80% of families rely on agriculture for their main source of income and food. Yet for most families and communities, subsistence agriculture is practiced.
Challenge
- Currently biodiversity combined with global warming and climate change have degraded our natural environment and with it, damaged our ecosystems. As a result, we can no longer rely on our rainy seasons.
- Two years of economic disruption set many families and communities back.
- Economic opportunities were fewer, many businesses had reduced income, and marketing agricultural produce had additional challenges.
- Lost income and widespread hunger across wide swaths of Northern Uganda. Many families struggled to put food on the table and to survive.
- School closures during the war and later Covid provided a reprieve to pay school fees in the short term but in the long term, many children and youths lost time in their educational journeys and some never returned to school.
Expected Outcomes
Since this program is designed to shift the paradigm from dependence on donors or external forces;
- Participating out-of-school youths are trained in modernized agriculture, environmental conservation, and entrepreneurship with support services.
- The youths will fund their primary, secondary, tertiary, vocational, and technical education to self-reliance through agricultural entrepreneurship.
- Paradigm shift from dependence on donors to fund secondary, vocational, and technical school to self-reliance through youth-led agricultural entrepreneurship.
- Youths are personally developed through life skills, mentorship, self-reliance, and teamwork.
- Local economies, food security, and family income improve, helping to eradicate poverty.
