A group of farmers are gathered in clusters on a more than four-acre piece of land in Nabokotom village, Amudat sub-county in Amudat district.
Some of them help to arrange the semi-permanent tubes that act as irrigation pipes for vegetables they planted a month earlier. Others walk about, checking for any sprouting weeds.
Among the farmers present is 43-year-old Peter Lokonoi, a former cattle rustler. Lokonoi says his father and relatives inducted him into cattle rustling at a young age. Eventually, the activity became an integral part of his adult life.
“I was called a dangerous man because I used to waylay and shoot people in order to get money,” he narrates. “I would carry out ambushes in Amudat [district] and even go as far as Turkana in Kenya to look for water and steal animals.”
For his mischief, Lokonoi bears visible scars and keloids on his neck and arm, a result of his numerous confrontations with adversaries who gave as much as they got. Lokonoi says some of his actions were borne of desperation due to lack of alternative sources of livelihood in a generally hostile environment.
“My family needed to eat and I used to do all this so that they would live well. I would find a smartly dressed person on the way and pull out my gun and order them to give me everything valuable they had, which I would sell off for money. Sometimes, I killed them,” he confesses with a dejected look.
In 2001, the government launched a disarmament exercise in north-eastern Uganda to eliminate the prevalence of illegally acquired guns causing insecurity across districts in Karamoja, Teso and Lango sub-regions.
It is during the exercise that Lokonoi handed over his guns, leaving him short of options since the practice was a source of sustenance for his family. He resorted to taking care of his livestock, occasionally selling them off to buy essential items.
In 2012, the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and Zoa International invited pastoralists from the seven Karamoja districts of Amudat, Kotido, Moroto, Abim, Napak, Nakapiripirit and Kaabong to venture into agricultural practices.
The first group, comprising 10 pastoralists included Lokonoi and was taken for a field visit to a vegetable farm in Gweri sub-county, Soroti district, where they were taught how to grow different types of vegetables.
“While there, I asked them what the plants were,” Lokonoi recollects. “I thought they were leaves and I asked them to give them to the goats to eat. I was instead informed that this was food which was good for [our] health.”
In 2013, Lokonoi organised a group of 30 farmers to form an association called Lowuta to kick-start the vegetable growing project. Lowuta received funding from FAO under its Enhancing Resilience in Karamoja Programme (ERKP).
Lokonoi, the group’s chairman, says when they started the project, some members were not comfortable with the communal approach and opted out. Others thought it was a waste of time given their majorly pastoralist tendencies. By 2015, only 15 people were left.
SOLAR IRRIGATION
In 2013, FAO teamed up with the UK Department for International Development (DFID) to fund the construction of solar-powered micro irrigation systems in each of the seven districts in the Karamoja sub-region. The initiative was part of the two organisations’ efforts to counter the unpredictable weather patterns in the semi- arid and water-stressed Karamoja, which have brought on eventual long drought spells.
The Shs 49 billion ($14 million) project was run under a programme called Strengthening Resilience of Agro-pastoral Communities and Local Government, whose aim was to reduce the impact of climate risks on livelihoods.
Nabokotom is among the villages benefitting from the solar-powered micro irrigation system, one of the components that farmer field schools have benefitted from. Through that system, water is pumped from underground and fed into pipes that serve a community borehole for the village, as well as the nearby Nabokotom primary school.
The system caters for livestock using a cement trough from which animals drink water, while the vegetable gardens depend on plastic pipes set up to deliver water that they sprinkle water across the vast acreage.
Lowuta group currently grows an assortment of vegetables that include collard greens (sukuma wiki), cabbages, cowpeas, beans, tomatoes, onions and bananas.
Last year, the group planted sukuma wiki, tomatoes and onions, which they harvested after about three months. They sold the vegetables at Amudat market and Konyao and Losam markets in western Kenya, earning Shs 1.8 million.
From the earnings, which are banked in their local savings box, the group has been able to purchase 70 goats and more land just a few metres from the seasonal Kanyangareng river, where they are growing bananas and sugarcane.
The returns from Lowuta’s farming have boosted the livelihoods of its members, going by Lokonoi’s confession.
“I am a happy man because I now cater for my wife and five children. I am able to pay tuition for my three school-going children and I have bought a solar panel to light up my homestead,” he boasts.
NAPAK, MOROTO EXPERIENCES
Eighty kilometers away in Napak district is another solar-powered irrigation system, located at Lokupoi parish in Matany sub-county. Some 120 people, split into four groups, have established a vegetable garden on slightly more than a quarter an acre of land. They grow cowpeas and collard greens (sukuma wiki) for the last three years.
Joseph Tapem, the chairman of the 50-member Loobore group, explains that through the water project, the consortium is able to irrigate their plants at least twice a day. They sell their produce at Matany trading centre.
Tapem says he received Shs 58,000 in February this year, which he used to pay school fees for his four children, buy scholastic materials and mattresses. The group has also used its proceeds to purchase at least two goats for each member, along with seedlings that they hope will launch their members into fruit farming. However, results have been mixed so far.
“We were also given mango and orange seedlings but due to the scorching sun, the plants dried up. Also, the pipes to pump water for irrigation are few and it takes quite a long time, which frustrates us,” Tapem says.
In Rupa sub-county in Moroto district, farmers have learnt to use a different technique to harvest water for production. Abdul Saboor Jawad, the food security and water management specialist at FAO, led a team of journalists to a small waterfall that flows downstream from the Mount Moroto ranges.
One of FAO’s implementing partners, Institute for International Cooperation and Development, constructed a retaining wall and a piping system which then feeds into a 10,000-litre tank in the valley.
The tank is connected to pipes that connect water to a cement trough for the livestock, water for domestic use for the communities around and watering of the cowpea vegetable gardens of Musupu group, which is close to two hundred metres away.
“It is low maintenance, low technology and low cost. It doesn’t happen everywhere because you have to have the right topography to do that. This is a living stream and so the water flows all year round,” Jawad explains.
Musupu group member Benedicto Abura says each of their 35 members deposits weekly Shs 1,000 in their informal savings box, which they later use to purchase livestock for the association.
“When we sell off our produce, we collect the money and buy goats,” says Tom Ochorobu, another member. “When they produce kids, we distribute them to members who have no livestock so they are also able to own at least one.”
Michael Lokiru, FAO’s programme officer in charge of crop production in Karamoja, says that through ERKP, they have trained farmers in sustainable management of the project.
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