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BY WILFRED LAMONY JWEE
NWOYA: MONDAY, AUGUST 4, 2025
Juliet Layet, 28, is an enterprising farmer in Otingo Cung in Mulago cell Geyi ward in Koch Goma Town Council, Nwoya district.
Layet, a member of Obol Farmers’ Group that has 57 members explains that she had used traditional hand hoes for digging since her childhood but had limited outputs.
Where every planting season she would dig multiple crop gardens, she always ended up grappling with food insecurity and poverty to the extent that she was unable to pay her children school fees that also resulted into break-up of her marriage.
“However, I attained a training for two weeks from Agwata in Lira City on how to operate and repair the hand-held walking tractors. Shortly after my return from the training, Nwoya district received 11 walking tractors from the government for distribution to farmers’ groups,” she recounted.
Layet’s Obol farmers’ group was among the 11 groups that were given the walking tractors.
But to her advantage, she was the only farmer from Nwoya district who had attained a training on how to operate and repair the tractor.
“Thus our group’s tractor was left in my custody for six months while waiting for the district to organize training of the beneficiaries’ groups,’’ Layet explained.
That was in 2022 and it marked a real turnaround in Layet’s fortunes as she started using the tractor to plough her crop gardens.
In the 2023 first planting season, Layet managed to ploughed 10 acres of land that she planted soya beans, maize, groundnuts, beans and green vegetable like Tomatoes and cabbages that greatly boosted her household food security and incomes.
After Nwoya district organized a training for the beneficiaries, Layet’s group members decided that members pick a random number to determine the order of ploughing the gardens.
Each member that the tractor would be going to plough his/her crops gardens must provide 4 liters of diesel fuel, UGX.10,000 allowance for the machine operator and food and additional UGX.20,000 for deposit in the group’s account for servicing the tractor.
However, other farmers who do not belong to the group but who want their land to be ploughed too, have to pay UGX.100,000 and fuel the tractor.
Layet says that using the walking tractor has enabled her to become self-reliant in that she has educated her three children in a private school as a single parent, boosted her household food security and income.
She sells the produce like tomatoes, cabbages, groundnuts, soya beans, maize, beans and sunflowers in Gulu main market and to the business community from Anaka Town Council and Lira City.
But Layet’s farmers’ group of (Obol Farmers’ Group) also has a storage facility in Koch Goma Town Council for bulk storage of their harvests.
This allows them to safely keep some of the non-perishable goods for longer periods as they look for potential buyers where they have higher bargaining power. Last season, they stored about 170 bags of sunflowers.
Layet discloses that they have received additional support from Send a Cow, a humanitarian organization that has worked in Nwoya district since 2018, supporting farmers in three groups with cows.
So far Send a Cow has distributed 517 cattle to Obwol Farmers group (63 members), Olok Kwo farmers’ group (56 members) and Pit Odong Ki Mon farmers’ group (54 members).
“Each of our group’s member is mandated to contribute UGX.100,000 for monitoring the cattle, UGX.3,000 for membership and UGX.10,000 as share capital,” said Layet.
He transformative experience has also inspired other farmers to embrace the use of walking tractors for mechanized farming.
Martin Banya is one such farmer who has attained the status of a model farmer in Nwoya district after embracing use of walking tractors for ploughing his fields.
Based in Leb Ngec Centre in Lungulu Sub County, Banya says he adopted mechanized farming using walking tractors in 2017 when the National Agricultural Research Organisation introduced the idea in his area.
He was a member of a farmers’ group in Alero that was formed to pilot a program for the restoration of livelihoods in Northern Uganda.
In 2018, he managed to procure his own from Wash and Wills that enabled him to plough up to an acre of land in a single day.
“I now have two machine operators who helped in operating the walking tractor. Sometimes neighbouring farmers also hire it to plough their gardens,’’ Banya explained.
Banya adds that he had been trained on how to operate, repair and manage the hand walking tractor and he is always hired by the district to train other farmers’ groups on how to properly operate and maintain the walking tractors.
He notes that using walking tractors has greatly boosted his agricultural production output, citing that in two acres field of maize –he can now realize between 4-5 tons of harvest and in one season –nowadays he can get over 10 tons because the annual plantation acreage has increased.
Outputs of using mechanized land preparation
Banya says that he used to realize only between UGX.800,000-UGX.1 million on harvest for a season using the traditional hand hoes but from 2018 when he started using mechanized land preparation and tractors, his earning from an acre of garden shot to a minimum of UGX.1.5 million.
His gross earnings from the entire plantation average between UGX.4 million to UGX.5 million in first season and UGX.5 million to UGx.6 million in second season when rains are heavier.
Markets availability:
Banya uses stock bulking and sells to cross-border traders at Elegu border post at the Uganda-South Sudan border in Amuru district.
This is meant to eliminate possible losses arising from middlemen buying directly from the farmers in the villages at farmgate price.
“The middlemen cheat farmers too much as they buy at a giveaway prices that they determine instead of the farmers setting their price or selling at market value,’’ Banya explained.
He says for instance the middle men are buying maize at just UGX.700 a kilo from the villages and yet in the market, maize prices range between UGX.1,000 – UGX.1,500 a kilo.
Future Plan
Banya notes that he plans to procure an additional tractor to boost his Agricultural production and also support other farmers who may want to hire tractors to help them open large acres of land for commercial production.
“We plough an acre of garden at UGX. 100,000 and that is the money I use for repairing the tractors in case it develops mechanical breakdown,’’ declared Banya.
Moses Odikor, the Wash and Wills Regional Sale Manager for Eastern and Northern Uganda, says that walking Tractors are right for slashing and ploughing gardens
The walking tractors offer flexibility, reliability and ease of use for small-scale farming because it is designed to be attached to a variety of farm implements like diggers, plows, tillers and mowers.
“Our walking tractors has the capacity to be filled with an aluminum water pump enabling the pumping of water of 50 meters head and is capable of transferring water up to a distance of around 300 meters,” Odikor asserted.
Odikor says the focus is to improve household livelihood by increasing food production and income for small and medium –scale farmers.
“We specialized in providing farm utility vehicles and other equipment designed to enhance farmers’ productivity through conducting training programs for farmers on how to operate, utilize and manage their machineries effectively,’’ Odikor explained.
He adds that their tractors are used for ploughing, ridging, harrowing, planting and even water pumping.
The tractor can plough an acre of land using 2.5 liters of diesel fuel
“We have trained farmers in Agwata in Lira, Pader, Gulu and Nwoya amongst others,’’ Odikor noted.
Accessibility of the Hands Walking Tractors
Wash and Wills –being a joint venture – acquires the walking tractors from Thailand and China. Their main storage plant is at Bugolobi in Kampala with servicing Centre’s in Aromo in Lira, Kumi, Anaka Town Council and Arua city.
The decentralized service centers allow farmers with mechanical problems with their tractors to access professional assistance so that their machines are repaired or serviced.
A walking tractor is sold at UGX.18m and it comes with one year guarantee plus training for the farmers and machine operators.
Francis Okech, 44, a farmer from Kal village, Got Ringo parish in Paminyai Sub County has attested to these claims about walking tractors.
A member of Ngom Lonyo Farmers’ Group with 105 members, they were recipients of the government supplied walking tractors.
It relieved him of 30 years of futile reliance on hand hoes. Okech explained that when he started using mechanized land preparation, he registered a tremendous increase in production and that helped him in boosting his household food security and incomes.
“Our group picked me and another member to undergo training on how to operate the tractor but upon our returned from the two weeks training, we opted to trained two additional members to support them in operating and managing the tractors to adequately benefit all group members in agricultural production,” Okech explained.
He uses a solar drier for removing moisture from the harvest and after sorting and packaging, he keeps the produce safely in his food store.
Okech advises farmers in Acholi sub region to learn and borrow the best farming practices from other progressive farmers to also boost their agricultural production, food security and income for self-reliant, eradicate poverty and ensure collective growth in the region.
However, Justine Tabu, the Nwoya District Senior Agricultural Engineer in charge of mechanized Agriculture notes that mechanization in Agriculture is the only ways of boosting agricultural production.
Tabu explained that machineries usage like the walking tractors, 4-wheel tractors and ox-plough greatly help in land opening and preparation for planting crops in large acreage of land compared to the traditional hand’s hoes usage
“Those farmers’ groups or individual farmers having and using hands walking tractors also get income out of their machines being hired by other farmers at a fee of between UGX.60,000 and UGX.80,000 per an acr. This is cheaper than the 4-wheel tractors that is expensive to most farmers as hire for an acre stands at 100,000 shillings,’’ Engineer Tabu said.
However, Engineer Tabu noted that their farmers’ biggest challenges is the lacks of spare parts and mechanics that have knowledge and skills of repairing their machines in case of break down.
Although Shalom Venture have opened their servicing and maintenance Centre at Anaka Town Council but most of their skilful and experienced mechanics and spares parts are being ordered from Kampala
Engineer Tabu appealed to farmers in Nwoya district to invest in mechanized land preparation [mechanized agriculture] to enable them to timely open and prepared their crops gardens in large acreage.
He rooted for proper weeding, practice food post-harvest handling and storage to have quality harvests that fetched good prices in markets and learnt to bulks stocked their harvests as groups to have high bargaining power with the potential buyers without exploitation of the middlemen.
The production of this story was supported by InfoNile in partnership with Palladium under the Climate Smart Jobs.
