From the Editor: Urban farming for evicted street vendors
Sep 20, 2011
Want to know how it feels being caught between a rock and a hard place? Ask the vendors who were recently evicted from Kampala streets. Most of them are from rural areas, which they abandoned to storm the city (Kulumba kibuga).
Want to know how it feels being caught between a rock and a hard place? Ask the vendors who were recently evicted from Kampala streets. Most of them are from rural areas, which they abandoned to storm the city (Kulumba kibuga).
To capitalise on their street vending businesses, many of them had to sell off their family land. Now that the city has repulsed them and the land back in the village has been sold off, what next? Both the evicted and the evictees have no answers to offer.
Meanwhile, the campaign to decongest the city continues, with more people getting kicked out business. After street vendors, taxi and bodaboda operators are next, according to the decongestion time table. Where will all these people and their dependents go?
Apparently the city leadership did not include a resettlement component in its decongestion programme, which was a major oversight. To avoid a situation where crime replaces dirt on city streets, alternative employment must be found for these evicted vendors.
There are several viable alternatives, one of which is urban farming. Since many of them have been surviving by vending various agricultural products, they are aware that food production is lucrative business.
Besides, they know which food items move fast and carry a higher profit margin. The fact that they were able to eke out a living on the streets shows they have the entrepreneural spirit. What they need is training in different agro enterprises and access to small loans.
In neighbouring Kenya, the youth in Kibera, one of the biggest slums on the continent, are being organised by Nairobi city authorities to engage in urban farming. They are recycling rubbish into manure which they use to grow vegetables like tomatoes to supply to supermarkets.
That is the way to go. Otherwise, there is no way the country will develop when its youth, who make up the majority, are either underemployed as street vendors, boda boda riders, taxi touts or completely unemployed. Engaging them in urban farming is one way of getting them back into gainful employment.
Harvest Money is ready to work with the Lord Mayor and the CEO of KCCA, to promote urban farming in Kampala. If it is working in Kibera slum, then why not in Bwaise, Katanga, Kifumbira, Kibuli and others?
To capitalise on their street vending businesses, many of them had to sell off their family land. Now that the city has repulsed them and the land back in the village has been sold off, what next? Both the evicted and the evictees have no answers to offer.
Meanwhile, the campaign to decongest the city continues, with more people getting kicked out business. After street vendors, taxi and bodaboda operators are next, according to the decongestion time table. Where will all these people and their dependents go?
Apparently the city leadership did not include a resettlement component in its decongestion programme, which was a major oversight. To avoid a situation where crime replaces dirt on city streets, alternative employment must be found for these evicted vendors.
There are several viable alternatives, one of which is urban farming. Since many of them have been surviving by vending various agricultural products, they are aware that food production is lucrative business.
Besides, they know which food items move fast and carry a higher profit margin. The fact that they were able to eke out a living on the streets shows they have the entrepreneural spirit. What they need is training in different agro enterprises and access to small loans.
In neighbouring Kenya, the youth in Kibera, one of the biggest slums on the continent, are being organised by Nairobi city authorities to engage in urban farming. They are recycling rubbish into manure which they use to grow vegetables like tomatoes to supply to supermarkets.
That is the way to go. Otherwise, there is no way the country will develop when its youth, who make up the majority, are either underemployed as street vendors, boda boda riders, taxi touts or completely unemployed. Engaging them in urban farming is one way of getting them back into gainful employment.
Harvest Money is ready to work with the Lord Mayor and the CEO of KCCA, to promote urban farming in Kampala. If it is working in Kibera slum, then why not in Bwaise, Katanga, Kifumbira, Kibuli and others?