Farmers Training

Kidera has a population of 5,000 and around 70% of the population live from agriculture, which is largely run by women. 1,200 are young people. 41% of young people in Uganda (aged between 18 and 30) are neither in education nor in productive employment (Ubos, 2022). Agriculture will therefore also become an increasingly important economic sector for young people.

Training courses and workshops on modern agriculture were organised as part of the Global Grant project in close cooperation with the host Club (RC Gaba) and the international partners (RC Innsbruck Alpin (Doris) and RC Kitzbühel (Judith)). Three trainers from the Papoli Community Development Foundation (PACODEF) were recruited as experts in the field of agriculture for these workshops:
Ms Villas Anyango ( B.Sc Agriculture), Mr. Godfrey Olowo ( B Agribusiness Mgt) and the CEO of PACODEF, Mr. Emmanuel Ofumbi ( M.Sc Agric Econ).
They carried out the planned training areas in nine modules within three months (February - April 2025). Each module lasted two days and took place in Kidera Kidera Primary School for the theory and at the Kidera School Farm for practical/demonstration and commercial production.

50 participants from farming households in the Kidera community were trained in yield-enhancing technologies and agronomic practices for maize, cassava, peanuts, beans, avocados, rice and pastureland in order to secure and increase production. Climate change is a cross-cutting theme of the training. Topics include irrigation, seed selection and site selection, and the team will utilise the results of the soil tests carried out on the school farm last year.

The target group are subsistence farmers of Kidera focusing on 25 women, 25 men, 2 teachers and 10 pupils of Kidera Primary School. The young people/pupils can thus learn how to run the school farm economically and at the same time use the harvest of the demo seeds for school meals.

The knowledge can be used directly in one's own gardens, farmland. In particular, after successful completion, food security can be ensured for malnourished children, adolescent girls, widows and vulnerable people. The more knowledge there is, the safer and more independent life becomes.

In addition, the Global Grant project provides the farmers and the school farm with equipment (walking tractor, maize sheller, cassava chipper, and groundnut thrasher). This equipment can be used by all farmers in the community via a novel loan system (managed by Kidera Primary School and farmers organization.

When the international partners visited the demonstration farm on 16 April 2025, everyone was able to see for themselves how successfully the training courses had been carried out. A big Thank You goes to Mr Emmanuel Ofumbi, who was awarded and honoured on 16th of April 2025 with a Paul Harris Fellow Pin by Doris (RC Innsbruck Alpin) and Judith (RC Kitzbühel).

Furthermore, it is planned to turn the school farm / demonstration farm into a centre of excellence for agriculture and establish it as a social enterprise in the long term through community concepts (sharing, free seeds from the centre of excellence, etc.). This will enable it to become self-sustaining and make a sustainable contribution to food security for the School and for future generations in Kidera.