FARMERS TRAINED ON THE CLIMATE SMART AGRICULTURE

Alimocan Desire, ajournalist ar Radio Pacis engaging with a farmer from Omoro District on excellent post-harvest handling practices.Photo by Julius Ocungi

By Alimocan Desire
Gulu City

Farmers in Onyona Pida Lwala Parish, Ongako subcounty in Omoro district have been empowered on practicing climate smart agriculture during a training delivered through exhibitions by journalists who investigated about the different climate smart agricultural practices that other farmer group enterprises are embracing to increase their productivity.
 
Matthew Rupanga the team lead for the Climate Smart Jobs, one of the partners with whom the journalists worked, said the exhibition is to help give information to farmers on climate smart agricultural activities so as to help them adapt to the climate change as they also do farming.
 
According to Delly Sive, the Communications officer for Infonile, the organization that sponsored the journalists, this exhibition is aimed at getting feedbacks from the community too.
 
“We want to get feedback from the community; do they feel well represented in the stories, what has changed since these stories were written, how well do they understand about climate change, how well do they understand about climate smart agriculture. How do they think they as community can be able to contribute to solutions in Agriculture. The other thing is that we are able to make farmers well aware of what fellow farmers are doing that they could learn from, because we are aware that some farmers have very big pieces of land but do not know how to practice Climate smart agriculture,” Rubanga explained.

A cocoa farmer from Koch Goma Town Council, Kilama Quinto said he attended the exhibition to get more farming knowledge and skills.
 
“What brought me to the exhibition was to learn about the different innovations and skills on climate smart agriculture. I found good information as I interfaced with the different farmers who gave me more knowledge which will help me in the future,” Kilama said.
 
Acaa Lucy Irene, who is also a farmer in Onyona expressed that through the exhibition, she has learnt how to work in farmer groups so as to gain more from their agricultural practices.
 
“I came to listen to the various programs on farming to empower me because since I started farming, I have never profited from the practice. The discussions have given me an idea of joining farmer groups to help me reap more,” she explained.
 
Farmers from Onyona Pida Lwala Parish viewing exhibited photos in Ongako
Sub county.
 
Infonile is an organization that focuses on telling stories about water, environment, agriculture and much more, around the Nile Basin Countries with exception of Eritrea.
 
Currently, they are working with Climate Smart Jobs to tell stories of farmers using innovative measures to solve problems they are facing in their agricultural activities in Acholi Sub region.