MARACHA/GOMBA – Statistics from the National Forestry Authority (NFA) indicate that Uganda for the past 25 years has lost 63 percent of its forest cover due to tree-cutting for firewood, timber and charcoal, as well as the growth of farms and towns.
The forestry cover has shrunk from 45% in 1890 to the present 20.3 % of the total land area in Uganda. Currently, the rate of deforestation is estimated to be about 1% per annum.
At the current rate of deforestation in Uganda, the country is likely to lose all of its forests in the next 25 years.
Uganda is presently facing the repercussions of these actions including; the dry season which has become longer and filled with more droughts, the loose soil causing heavy rainfall to turn into deadly floods.
In the fight of these and more, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) through their European Union-funded project, Global Climate Change Alliance (GCCA) Plus has advocated for the use of solar-power cooking stoves.
The project is intended at contributing to the sustainable and gender transformative improvement of resilient livelihoods and food security for rural populations in Uganda, but also to strengthen the inclusive and gender-responsive resilience to climate change of rural populations and agricultural production systems in the central cattle corridor.
Ms. Nakato Mary of Bulwanda village, Kabulasoke sub-county, Gomba district is a beneficiary of the project who acquired her fixed solar-powered cooking stove through Gomba District Farmers Association (GODFA).
The Association promotes two kinds of solar-powered cookstoves- portable (mobile) and non-portable permanent) stoves. The former is made of metal and more costly than the permanent stove. Both kinds of stoves use majorly volcanic stones to produce heat and energy
“This stove uses a small amount of charcoal since it uses some rocks,” Ms. Nakato told the press.
“Like in my family we are about twelve people but we use a sack of charcoal for three months which used to last for only two weeks.”
She believes that the development will in the long run help in environmental conservation because less charcoal will be used for a long period of time.
Another mother of ten Milly Namuyiga and her husband Sali Nelson of Bunyinywa village, Kabulasoke sub-county, Gomba district lauded GODFA for the innovation saying that they are now worried no more of rain as they can now cook in all weather conditions.
“Even if it rains the whole day now, I’m able to cook and eat. We have been able to use about one kilogram of volcanic rocks for over a year now and it is still working very well,” said Namuyiga.
Ms. Kulabako Rodah, Coordinator, GODFA said that the innovation seeks different interventions that can reduce the destruction of the environment and also that can allow farmers to adapt to better interventions for climate change.
“This started with a major objective to ensure that women and youth attain income. We had a baseline of training them on the concept of the solar-powered cook stove installation, maintenance and construction.”
She says with this, the farmers will be able to use small fuel and at the same time save the environment.
Ms. Kulabako, however, decried the scarcity and cost of the air system which includes the fan, switch and net that reduces the rate at which the dust penetrates the stove since none of them is readily available in Uganda.
Also, under Climate- Resilient Livelihood Opportunities for Women Economic Empowerment in Karamoja and West Nile Regions of Uganda project, FAO has supported Nyai Women’s Group making energy-saving cookstoves in Nyaduri sub-county, Maracha District.
According to the FAO study, the use of energy-saving cookstoves will save 33 trees per year.
The group says that besides selling them and earning money, the cookstoves help them to save time by doing other things while cooking.
They also revealed that the new stove is unlike the outdated three-stoned stove which used to produce a lot of smoke in the course of preparing food which they used to inhale thus getting respiratory and sight problems.
Makosa Immaculate, a user of the new stove said she hardly regrets spending her shs15,000 to buy the stove but would rather wish to join the group and learn.
“It is really helping me…. It takes just small charcoal and keeps the heat inside for longer than the ordinary one which wastes the charcoal for nothing.”
“Initially, I used to buy two sacks of charcoal per month but today, even charcoal for shs500, I can cook. Charcoal for one thousand I use it for three days now,” Makosa explained, saying that the only challenge of the stove is too heavy to carry from one place to another.
Godfrey Ocan, FAO Program Officer and Field Coordinator West Nile said that the project which is targeting the entire eight districts of West Nile for a period of four years has three components; i.e. looking at women’s access to control and reproductive resources. “Under that, we basically look at the productive resources that help women at household level in terms of production and productivity which in a way women have challenges in accessing some of these resources. So this project tries to strengthen the capacity of women and empower them in a way that they can have equal access to some of those productive resources like land, forest resources and also even other human productive assets at the household level which has been a bit of a challenge. In terms of production when you look at women’s contribution, they contribute almost 80% but when it comes to access to some of these productive resources, they have little maybe like 10% or 20%.”
The second component is household income and climate-smart resilient activities. “This one, we look at numbers of activities which is based on needs, particularly these groups met a selection of a value chain of their interest and enterprise that we are trying to promote through their interest and we want to look at the entire value chain for that particular enterprise in a way to promote household income and empower them to become more resilient.”
The third component engulfs engagement, the ecosystem adaptation and mitigation of the rural community enhance. “This one we are looking at the issue of planting the bioenergy woodlands, we are strengthening the private sector in terms of production and supply of planting materials, especially tree seedlings and also we are looking at the climate activities that community get involved in like the component of biogas, irrigation system and also other climate-smart agricultural activities.”
Nyai Women’s Group, Ocan said they had a number of engagements with them focusing on the stimulation of the household income and resilient to livelihood capacity enhance by supporting them with farm tools, inputs, capacity building and also mentoring.
By use of these stoves, Ocan says will reduce women’s contact to any element that can bring GBV at household level “because when women spend longer time in in the bush collecting firewood, that can cause conflict at household level and also exposes them to some risks in terms of when you send a girl to collect firewood they can easily be exposed to like rape or some sexual violence.”
The group, however, decried the price of materials that they use like iron sheets, saying that if they increased the price, the locals might not afford them.
Dr. Chandia Alex, the district production officer, Maracha also applauded FAO for the project, saying that it is in line with the government program National Development three whose major focus is to support farming communities along the agricultural value chain.
“We received this project. I was taken through; it is important because the first level of the value chain is the input supply. The project is supporting farming communities with seedlings which will make them improve the cattle production and productivity so they will be able to improve on the food production and also earn incomes.”
“We are very grateful because it has come up with a concept of building the capacity of farming communities so that they are in sustainable groups so that they will be able to produce marketable volumes of agricultural products and it’s through these organised farming groups that they’ll be able meet the demand of the market,” he added.
He said that the project is anticipated to help much because Maracha district has a very small household land holding of around 2.5 hectares and the project has supported farmers in terms of viable enterprises which can be accommodated by a small piece of land they have.
“For example, we have a poultry project supported by FAO, agroforestry so that we are able to mitigate the environmental effects because of the pressure by the population.”
Dr. Chandia told the press that with now the coming of the parish development model, they are sure that when they build the capacity of the farmer groups at the parish level, they will be able to support them in different ways.
On the failure of Government programs, Dr. admitted they have not been organised well. For any government program to succeed, we should focus on farm organisations because when we build their capacity and they know what they are supposed to do, they get their leadership, they select their enterprises, we guide them, they will succeed.”
He says the challenge is that groups come when there is a project.
They want to benefit from the project and then after they disintegrate, meaning that those groups did not have common interests. So the best we can do for our farming communities is to organize them into interest groups by…. taking them through gross margin analysis.”
