Africa Edition
Through World Neighbors' intervention, smallholder farmers in Uganda are now adopting commercial banana cultivation as a source of family income. The current climate crisis has had a negative impact on agricultural production of all crops -including bananas- as agriculture is still primarily rain-fed. Droughts have become more frequent, so the farmers have to find ways of becoming resilient to the effects of climate change. Rain-fed banana cultivation has become risky because of the unpredictability of rainfall.
World Neighbors has been working with communities in both Malongo and Bukabooli sub-Counties of Mayuge district in Uganda to improve their food security, diversify their livelihood sources and increase their incomes. Households have been growing mainly native banana cultivars that are sources of food and are also used for social and traditional functions.
In 2016, the program sourced 1,800 Mpologoma banana suckers which were distributed to 18 farmers under a strategy known as 'passing on the gift'. Under this strategy, farmers who receive the suckers are required to share suckers with other farmers once the original ones have been planted and produced their own suckers.
Source: farmersreviewafrica.com
