Teso clan leaders trained on better agricultural practices

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The rains are on their way following a long dry spell across Uganda. As such, the farmers in the eastern region of Teso are getting set to begin planting crops.

The majority of these farmers practise subsistence farming as opposed to commercial farming. But it is the latter that would profit them and improve their household incomes.

With this in mind, one member of the Irarak Imoo clan in Ngora district decided to hire experts from the National Farmers’ Leadership Centre to conduct a two-day training on mindset change and improved agricultural practices.

Irarak Imoo clan pose for a group photo after the day one training in Ngora on Friday. (Credit: Godfrey Ojore)

This centre was created to develop the capacity of farmer leaders and other practitioners for agricultural transformation.

In Ngora, the two-day training that started on Friday (March 14) was conducted at Tiling Gawa Primary School.

“The major impediment of my people is mindset," said Dr John Ekure, who hired the experts.

"Many people expect only to receive support and many of them have normalized their bad situation of living in poverty as the way to go.

“Having learnt about the National Farmers’ Leadership Centre that was initiated by President Yoweri Museveni, I offered to hire their experts to train my clanmates on modern farming techniques and change their mindset from subsistence farming to commercial farming," said Ekure.

Samuel Kahungu a crop Instructor training Irarak Imoo clan members. (Credit: Godfrey Ojore)

Dr Simon Peter Angeki was the instructor on livestock keeping.

He blamed the high levels of poverty among the Iteso on the mindset of traditional farming practices such as keeping local cows that do not profit the farmers.

“Keeping large herds of local cows will not get you out of poverty because they give you a low amount of milk as opposed to Friesian cows,” said Angeki.

He added that the Iteso can potentially get out of the poverty cycle once they embrace profitable modern farming.

“Iteso pride in having 30 cows that give them one jerrican of milk, yet if they opted for only four Friesian cows, a farmer could get four jerricans of milk that can enable them educate and offer treatment to their family with ease."

Samuel Kahungu, who handled the topic of crop husbandry, said the tools for helping the community on economic transformation are farmer field school approaches and mindset transformation.

“Farmer field schools have a capacity to identify technology approaches and most importantly they help farmers with capacity on observation skills and problem-solving skills,” he said.

Kahungu underlined that the training will empower the farmers to have the capacity to select proper seeds for use and pesticides suitable for spraying their crops.

'We thought prayers would save us'

The training equipped the farmers with thinking positively about sustainable commercial agricultural production and provided a guide for future training of other farmers.

And after undergoing the eye-opening workshop, the participants appeared encouraged.

John Stephen Onapito, the chairman of the Irarak Imo clan, admitted that leading poor people is challenging.

“Many people have given up on life and have just folded their hands as they hope for support from good Samaritans, yet they have the capacity to get out of poverty," he said.

Onapito added that the training is timely and has opened the minds of his people to think big and in the near-future become giants economically.

“We thought that prayers could deliver us from the biting poverty, yet the truth of the matter is, hard work and persistence in whatever you do is key,” said Tom Ojakol, who attended the training.

Like him, David Okello from Serere district said the lack of exposure and trainings have been a hindrance to most people.

“Surely we only believed that it is the government's role to make us rich," he said.

"But the training has made us understand that getting rich is the responsibility of every individual whereas the government is charged with offering a conducive environment like the relative peace we now enjoy."

Anglican Reverend, Robert Onyait, said the people have interpreted the biblical scripture that says “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of Heaven” as meaning that being poor is normal before God.

“God made us enjoy not to live in poverty and so the poor man is the one that the devil can easily use to go and commit crimes such as theft and killing among others," he said.