Farming with a nutritional objective

In most communities in Uganda today agricultural services extension workers tend to put more emphasis on how to increase yields of crops and livestock in order to reduce poverty. This is an area in which perhaps most of them have received formal training.

It is also true that most political leaders talk about farming mainly as a weapon against poverty. Yet without emphasising good nutrition in their farming campaigns they end up with communities where children and adults are undernourished, weak, and vulnerable to various forms of ill health despite the high farm yields sometimes achieved.

Harvest-Plus, a global anti-hunger organisation, refers to this as ‘hidden hunger’ which is a form of malnutrition caused by lack of micronutrients in the food eaten by most poor people. They eat staple foods such as potatoes, bananas, or cassava that quickly fill their stomachs, yet they continue to suffer from malnutrition or “hidden hunger”, as these food crops do not have the vital nutrients such as iron, zinc, and vitamin A that the World Health Organisation categorises as the most essential nutrients for healthy living. 

In Uganda malnutrition is a big health burden, costing the country $899 million annually, according to the Global Hunger Report 2013. As the population keeps getting bigger over the years there is less farming space, agricultural production is constrained and food prices rise, leading to nutrition-related health problems.

Nutritional value

Farmers, who are the food producers, and all other food consumers should have some understanding of the nutritional values of the different food items that they eat because nutrition significantly affects the general wellbeing of everyone. As an agricultural country Uganda produces a lot of food but malnutrition is widespread, particularly among children.

We have the potential and capacity to produce sufficient food but we need some education on what food to eat, how much to eat, and the related nutritional benefits for us to live healthy and productive lives. Approximately half of all deaths in children in Uganda are attributed to malnutrition. “Food and Nutrition in Uganda” by Namutebi, Muyonga, and Tumuhimbise). Agricultural services extension workers therefore should also be involved in the distribution of information that can help people to maintain good nutrition in order to be healthy and productive.

The issue of under nutrition among children and the need to reduce related health problems attracted the attention of Dr Emmanuel Ssentongo Lugwana, proprietor of Master Cares Community Hospital Betereemu in Kyotera District, way back in 2014, when he started a clinic for malnourished children. “They were mainly from poor households which did not have enough food to eat,” he told Seeds of Gold. 

“Apart from being poor, many of them lacked the correct information about the dietary needs of their babies. When the mothers don’t feed well due to food scarcity they lack sufficient breast milk and their babies become under nourished and stunted. They would then report to the hospital expecting to get drugs to treat their condition. Yet their real problem could be resolved by good feeding.”

This led to the opening of Master Cares Hospital Nutritional Clinic in 2014 where the mothers and their babies were admitted and required to spend some months learning about good nutritional feeding and gaining farming skills on small spaces to produce crops such as beans, groundnuts, tomatoes, and a variety of vegetables for their eating and some excess for selling to get some income. They also learned about livestock keeping. The babies were provided with free meals consisting of food stuffs known to be nutritious. In just a period of three months most of the babies were healthy and had gained normal weight. 

Ms Harriet Nabwato, one of the mothers with babies receiving nutritional care at Master Cares, told Seeds of Gold, “My son was growing thinner and thinner every day and I genuinely thought he was about to die. I had taken him to various health facilities and herbalists without seeing any improvement until some people told me about this place. I have been here for one and half months and he looks cured already.”

In 2022 it was observed that some of the mothers’ issues were mainly caused by poverty and absence of income generating activities. Without some form of regular income such mothers could not buy sufficient food and they didn’t have enough breast milk. 

This led to the formation of Galileo Community Institute for Creative Business Skills in 2022 at the hospital to give job skills to the mothers of undernourished children. Moses Kaggwa, the hospital administrator, said, “We chose to expand the poverty reduction project beyond the mothers that came to the hospital with undernourished children and we formed the Galileo Community Institute for Creative Business Skills with the view to include other women in the community to further reduce malnutrition.” Kaggwa went on to disclose that the hospital teaches other vulnerable local women skills like hair dressing, confectionery, and tailoring. 

Modern farming skills

Galileo Community Institute for Creative Business Skills has also been joined by Mbarara University of Science and Technology lecturer, Dr Kintu Mugagga, who has introduced modern farming skills, value addition and the conversion of crop residues into fodder. Dr Mugagga, who teaches anatomy in the Faculty of Medicine and has a background in Veterinary Medicine, has introduced skills regarding livestock keeping and turning crop left-over’s into fodder.

“Most of the mothers who spend time with us don’t have sufficient land on which to grow crops or to keep livestock,” says Dr Mugagga. “So we teach them the wisdom of keeping small animals like dairy goats, pigs, and sheep. By keeping livestock such as poultry and goats, they get organic manure which enables them to fertilise the small plots of land on which they grow the food.” Dr Mugagga further says all people growing crops should also keep livestock. He is also spearheading the turning of crop residues like maize stalks into fodder.

There is a garden for fodder grass at the hospital to feed the goats and a Frisian cow. “Goats milk is very nutritious,” says Dr Mugagga.

“Our principle is to waste nothing. We are a no waste project. And we intend to set up a demonstration training commercial livestock and feed farm, with massive conversion of maize crop waste into livestock feed. We also want to sensitise the farmers in the surrounding community about innovation. Some one hundred hens are kept to provide eggs for the children’s eating and to produce manure for the crops.”

NUTRITIONAL

In Uganda malnutrition is a big health burden, costing the country $899 million annually, according to the Global Hunger Report 2013. As the population keeps getting bigger over the years there is less farming space, agricultural production is constrained and food prices rise, leading to nutrition-related health problems