Backyard farming: Luwakanya successfully juggles politics and farming

Sep 13, 2011

John Luwakanya believes in leading by example. The 47-year-old Mpigi district chairman wakes up at 5:00am to start working on his farm in Nabitete village Buwama sub - county.

BY PASCALKWESIGA

John Luwakanya believes in leading by example. The 47-year-old Mpigi district chairman wakes up at 5:00am to start working on his farm in Nabitete village Buwama sub - county.

He joins the herdsman to milk his cows. Later, he mixes feeds for his chicken before leaving for office at 6:45am, taking with him 20 litres of milk which he sells on the way.

Luwakanya does not work on Thursdays; instead he spends the whole day at the farm. Armed with a hoe and a panga, he leaves home at 6:00am to work on his coffee and banana plantations.

Dressed casually, the district chairman spends most of the day picking coffee beans.

If he is not picking coffee, he is pruning the trees in preparation for the next season.

While on his farm, Lukawanya is repeatedly interrupted by farmers who want to fix appointments with him to visit their farms.

“There is nothing that gives me comfort like being on my coffee plantation. I would have wanted to stay in my plantation for the whole day but I am also a district chairman,” he says.

By the road side, a few metres to his home, the sound of cows mowing, chickens clucking and coffee tree-plants greets you. Located about five miles on Kampala-Mbarara highway, Luwakanya’s coffee and banana serve as a modal farm.

He has three Friesian cows and about 1,500 birds. From milk alone, he earns sh300, 000 per month.

Behind his home are three poultry houses where he is rearing his 1000 one-month-old layer chicks and more than 500 layers.

Luwakanya has just sold off 2,000 layers due to the escalation of prices of chicken feeds.

He says 1,000 chicken lay 750 eggs per day. A try of eggs goes for sh6,000 in the district.

Luwakanya adds that he makes sh4.5m from the sale of eggs per month, three times more than the salary he gets as the district chairman.

“I sell 25 trays of eggs per day. I earn sh150, 000 from eggs alone and at the end of the month that is sh4.5m,” he says. But the rise in the prices of chicken feeds is eating into his profits. His current profit margin has reduced sh900, 000.

“I spend sh3.6m on feeds and drugs yet six months ago I would save sh1.5m profits from eggs per month,” he adds.

However Luwakanya’s major economic activity is coffee growing. He attributes his passion for coffee to his late father Nazario Kawesi who used to harvest 300 bags of the crop each season and had 20,000 birds in the 1970’s.

The district boss has 6,000 coffee plants. Each coffee plant, Luwakanya says yields a minimum of 2kgs of dried coffee beans per season.

“I harvest 12,000kgs of dried coffee per season and that means I earn sh24m if each kilogram is sold at the current price sh2,000,” he adds.

How he started
Luwakanya says he started with 100 birds in 1999 were given to him by his friend who encouraged him to try his hand at poultry.

In a few months, he says poultry proved a very lucrative venture for him and he has been increasing the number to maximise returns.

Care for business
Luwakanya uses the cows and chicken dung as manure for his coffee plantation.

He adds that he does not need to employ many shamba boys since he starts to pick coffee in December when his children are at home for holidays.

Luwakanya buys the cotton cake and sliver fish from the nearby Katebu landing site on Lake Victoria.

He then mixes the locally crashed cotton cake, silver fish and maize bran for his chickens to reduce costs.

Challenges
The escalation of prices of chicken feeds that has forced to reduce the number of his chickens from 3,000 birds to 1,000 yet the prices of a tray of eggs has not changed.

He says another challenge is limited suppliers of chicks, and expired vaccines that kill chickens leading to losses.

The high prices of herbicides and fertilisers, poor soils and fluctuation of coffee prices and thieves.

Future plans
Luwakanya wants each family to have at least 200 coffee plants for a start in the selected seven villages.

He also plans to set up a coffee milling factory at home.

Luwakanya says this will save him from transport costs and other farmers and improve on the quality of the coffee they produce.

He also plans to begin exporting the crop. But he is faced with the dilemma to concentrate on organic coffee in the face of declining soil fertility or turn to inorganic coffee.

Luwakanya says there is a high demand for organic office in coffee buying countries today.

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