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By Josephine Osandru Mawua,
TEREGO/MADI-OKOLLO: MONDAY, MARCH 10, 2025
In the wake of unbearable heat waves due to rising temperatures sweeping through East Africa and coupled with scarcity of water, living in a refugee settlement has been a mind-blowing experience in the Rhino Camp Refugee settlement in Terego and Madi Okollo districts.
Located about 10 km west of River Nile, Rhino Camp refugee settlement currently experiences high daytime temperatures of 39 to 42 degree Celsius according to Uganda meteorological daily weather forecast.
The heat wave has led to acute food shortage after most food crops dried up and the long drought resulted in low harvests for many farmers in the area.
The women in Omugo, Ofua, Ocea and Siripi zones have responded with a number of modern farming methods to maneuver their way towards a better livelihood.
These include setting up greenhouses, better seed handling and nursery bed preparations, small scale irrigation, using local materials for mulching and manure production, effective pest and disease management and sustainable agronomic practices.
The refugee women are now using these climate-smart agricultural practices for growing vegetables like cabbage, nakati, onions, Tomatoes among others for both home consumption and for sale.
This has greatly improved their livelihood and elevated them out of economic vulnerability and famine.
The refugee women have boosted their capacity and are expanding their farm businesses, thanks to support with training and equipment from humanitarian organizations working in Rhino Camp refugee camp like Dan Church Aid (DCA) and PALM CORPS among others.
Annet Angujeru, a female farmer in Ngurua village in Siripi zone says she came to the area when she was joining senior one in 2018.
She was able to get a chance for training in farming under PALM CORPS during COVID19 pandemic where they were taught as youth for six months on growing crops like tomatoes, cabbage, and eggplant. This enabled her to engage in farming to raise her own school fees.
“After my senior four I didn’t have school fees for joining further studies but I decided to use the knowledge I gained from the PALM CORPS to start growing tomatoes out of which I was able to raise enough money to join a certificate course in agriculture,” said Angujeru.
She recounted a bitter experience when she rented land from someone who eventually stopped her from using the land out of envy when he saw the lady had reaped good harvest.
Such is the unpredictable state of women’s access to farmland in West Nile but the challenge didn’t deter Angujeru from pushing forward.
“I have now completed my certificate in Agriculture focused on tomato growing. I am currently planting more to enable me to raise money to join diploma in august this year,” Angujeru stated with assured confidence.
Similarly, Faida Moreen Ombi of the same village narrates that they use greenhouses to raise nursery beds for their vegetables then transplant in well-prepared gardens. She grows mainly tomatoes, cabbage and African eggplant.
Safi ALI, the site manager for one of the demonstration farms established by PALMCORPS in Siripi Zone, discloses that they receive farmers on regular intervals to train in climate-smart agricultural practices.
The syllabus includes raising good seedlings, proper pest and disease management, mulching and sunken bed during dry season.
“Usually during the first season, we don’t get rains, so we maximize the little rains we receive and encourage diverse crop planting so that when one fails, the other is there to cover up. Women are good at practicing mulching,” Safi declared.
He added that the demonstration farm started operating during COVID19 pandemic in 2020. They currently work with over 200 farmer groups within the refugee settlement and also work with nutrition mentors and community-based facilitators to transfer the knowledge to the local farmers.
One other organization also engaging in equipping farmers in the refugee settlement with skills on modern farming is Dan Church Aid (DCA).
According to Nancy Asibazuyo, the Environment and Energy Officer at DCA, they support women from over 100 households within Omugo and Imvepi settlements.
She said after the training, the farmers are supported with tree seedlings, banana suckers, vegetable seedlings and some farm tools to dig rocky arrears to harvest water.
The training focuses on utilizing small rocky and unproductive land for vegetable growing and encourages them to have small gardens in their compounds for growing vegetable crops for food consumption and sale.
Grace Sukuran of village 1 in Omugo zone shares how the training she got from DCA on climate smart agriculture is helping her and family.
She switched from brewing local waragi and burning charcoal to growing tomatoes.
William Onzima, the Natural Resource Officer for Madi Okollo district, says the district supports farmers, both the nationals and refugees within the district, including persons with disability without discrimination.
The support includes extension services, training, workshops, offering periodic climate information leaflets to the farmers to prepare them for planting season, and distribution of seedlings among other interventions.
He adds that farmers in the district have registered a lot of success stories in the refugee hosting Rigbo sub county.
“You find women who are growing vegetables, for example there is a woman who got over seven million shillings from a quarter acre. We are looking forward to encouraging them to embrace digital platforms to access information on the market for their produce, pesticides and so on. We are also engaging the Ministry of Agriculture to equip them with tablets for this purpose,” Onzima narrated.
Ministry of Agriculture, Animal and fisheries is currently implementing a climate-smart agriculture project whose components include Strengthening Climate-Smart Agricultural Research, Seed and Agro-Climatic Information Systems, Promoting Adoption of Climate-Smart Agriculture Technologies and Practices, Market Development and Linkages for Selected Value Chains, Contingency Emergency Response Component and Project Management, Coordination, and Implementation.
For west Nile it is being implemented in selected districts of Adjumani with beef production as the main enterprise, Zombo for Soya beans, Yumbe for mangoes and Nebbi for Aquaculture and fisheries among others.
The project is expected to directly benefit about 760,000 households (3,900,000 individuals) and indirectly benefit approximately 1,900,000 households (9,500,000 individuals).
Among these, beneficiaries from the non-refugee districts will be about 620,000 households and 60,000 refugee households and 80,000 refugee-hosting households. This represents 65% of the total population in the project districts.
Dickson Engama, the soil fertility technician at Abi Zonal Agricultural Research and Development centre in Arua City encourages farmers to do crop rotation, harvest water in the soil and practice good soil management practices such as mulching, digging deep and enriching with correct application of manure to ensure continuous cycle of production in the same garden.
He advises farmers to make their own manure using available materials like fresh vegetative cover chopped and dried to make manure.
“For communities like refugees with small land size for farming, I advise them to have some few chicken and animals like one or two goats so that the manure they generate can be incorporated into the yard and crop residues can go back to the animals. So that kind of integration is very helpful for the farmers with small land size,” Egama said.
He says they are currently promoting pama-culture for areas with small land for farming.
This involves double ploughing where farmers are advised to dig deep beds of 45 to 60 cm deep and enrich it with manure intensively, the same bed is also incorporated with biochar made out of charcoal dust.
“Such pama-culture land should be placed in the lower side of the land so that every water run-off along the slopes is captured to be stored in the garden. Every trench can be dug 60cm wide and 2 meters long, meandered within the garden. This enables every small water stored to remain moistening the land, especially when incorporated with mulching to avoid too much evaporation,” Egama stresses.
Rhino Camp Refugee settlement is characterised by high temperatures and sandy soils that Egama appeals to farmers to grow plants like marigold, Retiva grass and calliandra to ensure sufficient harvest of materials for mulching and for fodder for the animals.
He also urges farmers to plant fruits and flowers in their gardens to aid pollination for their crops through the insects the flowers and fruits will attract. He appeals to farmers in the refugee settlement to use drought resistant healthy seeds.
The soil expert believes that with these sustainable modern agricultural practices, the farmers will be able to make reasonable money from their farming activities while conserving the environment and containing the harsh climatic conditions.
