When EATBETA Summer 2020 Mission was cancelled due the COVID-19 pandemic, the team in Uganda did not want to see a whole summer wasted without doing anything. So, after the Uganda government relaxed the lockdown, our team quickly embarked on a plan to conduct seminars among rural farmers. In August, a total of 50 rural farmers at Kibasi village— Kabarole district, participated in the seminar conducted there by our local team. In September 2020, a total of 60 rural farmers at Bendegere village—Nakaseke district, participated in the seminar conducted there by our local team. During the seminars, rural farmers were provided tips on how to engage in farming as a business, tips on rearing livestock, and a hand-plow was demonstrated.

EATBETA’s mission is to transform rural livelihoods through boosting their household incomes. The trainings provided are aimed at achieving that very mission; for instance, we demonstrate how to use a hand-plow since we believe farmland output can be twice that from using a traditional hoe, so rural farmers’ income are boosted. At Kibasi village, rural farmers—mostly women, were shown how to use the hand-plow and they are excited about their newly acquired skill. Throughout the centuries, the traditional hoe has been the major tool used in crop farming across sub-Saharan Africa.

However, with the current population explosion in sub-Saharan Africa, it is becoming increasingly challenging to keep pace with the staggering demand for food while relying on the hoe for crop cultivation. A hand-plow is a fairly simple tool that is easy to assemble and can greatly help rural farmers be far more productive in their farming efforts compared to the strenuous traditional hoe. For instance, it takes roughly three weeks to cultivate an acre of land with a hoe.

This inefficiency often results A rural farmer learning how to use a hand-plow at an EATBETA training session in Kabarole district, Uganda 5 in rural farmers missing important rainy seasons in which they should be planting their crops; when crops are planted late critical rains have passed. Consequently, entire farming seasons are wasted or not fully utilized simply because the traditional hoe slows down the farming process. In its quest to abate poverty and hunger among rural farmers in Uganda, and through its objective of enhancing rural farmers’ skills in quality crop farming to increase farming productivity, EATBETA believes this is a critical time to employ and implement better alternatives to the traditional hoe. During EATBETA’s training sessions where the use of a hand-plow is demonstrated, women, who comprise the majority of farmers in rural agriculture, are often given the opportunity to try out the hand-plow; many are impressed by its novelty and simplicity.

In communities where we have demonstrated and implemented the hand-plow, we know is greatly helping rural farmers to realize greater output per acre. Evidently, EATBETA’s introduction and demonstration of the hand-plow to rural farmers in Uganda has been a remarkable success; unfortunately, a majority of those farmers can’t afford the hand-plow’s import price of $100. EATBETA has a plan to have the hand-plows fabricated locally in Uganda and distribute them to the rural farmers at a subsidized and affordable price. However, EATBETA would still have to meet the cost of fabricating and distributing the hand-plows to the rural farmers. We humbly welcome donations to help in defraying the cost involved with this noble cause. Our immediate goal is to fabricate and distribute at least 110 hand-plows, to those rural farmers who participated in the recent training seminars at Kibasi village in Kabarole district and at Bendegere village in Nakaseke district.

View more details in pdf viewer below or open PDF here Fall-2020-Newsletter
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