Food Security in Mpigi Epicenter – A Breakthrough

In Africa, most families do not work together collectively to ensure their wellbeing. Food security is viewed as a household concern, not a community concern. The Hunger Project has introduced the concept of community gardens in all our epicenters across Africa to ensure both food security – sufficient food between the harvests so that no one goes hungry – and a source of income from the sale of the excess crops.

In late 2002, a group of elders and landlords from Senge, a village near the Mpigi Epicenter in Uganda, agreed to donate 33 acres of land to the Mpigi Epicenter for a community garden. Eight women and eight men took responsibility for cultivating the land by working two days per week and initially harvesting 21 acres of maize, the staple food in the Ugandan diet. Wanting to demonstrate its commitment and approach of communities working together to achieve the end of hunger, The Hunger Project-Uganda provided seeds and carried out the initial clearing of the land. These inputs were done on a credit basis, with the agreement that the groups will make re-payment.

Everyone agreed that the first harvest would be maintained at the epicenter’s food bank so that it could be bought or obtained on credit if needed in an emergency. With the money acquired, THP local committee will be able to purchase or grow more food to replenish the food bank. With this strategy, the food bank will have a constant supply of food for the surrounding communities.

This innovation, which resulted from years of meetings of the local leadership, is now being celebrated and pointed to for its success by the district government, which took the following actions as a result:

• The local officials visited the Mpigi Epicenter to see the community gardens for themselves in early February, and they formally thanked THP-Uganda team on that occasion;
• A district-wide campaign (which includes 613,081 people) was launched at that time for an additional 100 acres of land to be contributed and then cultivated;
• The district council will pass a resolution requiring that all 17 sub-counties of the Mpigi District participate fully in the food security campaign, which includes community food banks for storing food;
• Each sub-county was directed to budget funds for years 2003/2004 for this program, utilizing funds from the national government’s "Plan for Modernisation of Agriculture" budget.

More than 400 people attended the February event at the epicenter where the Local Council Vice Chair pledged to provide a tractor to assist any group who wished to open land on a communal basis. He also pledged to mobilize funds and buy the fuel and provide a tractor operator, who will work with the extension officers to ensure that the 100 acres are ready for planting.

Finally, he pledged that his executive body will pass a by-law making it mandatory that all sub-counties have food banks. "No sub-county will be assisted in any way unless they have a strategy for the food bank," he stressed. Thereafter, he officially launched the food security/food bank campaign for the entire Mpigi District.

Sarah Kataike Ndoboli, Uganda’s Hunger Project Country Director, announced that THP, in keeping with its methodology, would provide 1,000 kgs of maize seeds on credit to farmers wishing to cultivate a section of the land.

The celebration at the Mpigi Epicenter was televised nationally in Uganda and was also reported in the newspaper. A video tape of the event will be used to launch food security campaigns in other districts across Uganda and will be shared with Hunger Project leaders in other African countries.

For THP-Uganda, this is a breakthrough in their campaign to influence local governments to come up with long-term practical solutions and strategies for food security and the end of hunger.