Fertile Soil, Higher Profits with Conservation Agriculture
Even though she’s started improving her yields with conservation agriculture (CA), Specioza’s piece of land is too small to sustain her family, so she rents an additional plot. She says, “Even so, I still ended up with losses because the soil was exhausted, and our once-predictable climate has changed, making it hard to know what to plant when.”
Local partner PAG encouraged her to try a number of CA techniques aimed at replenishing the soil, like mulching and fertilizing with manure “tea” (liquid manure). During her training, she planted some climbing beans using traditional practices, and used CA on another plot, just to see the results from each. She was astonished at the huge difference in quality and yield, and declares, “I will not stop practicing conservation agriculture now. After applying all this new knowledge both on my land and the rented land, the soil has started to regain its fertility and now I am making some profits.”
When one of her neighbors realized that the rented field had regained fertility and that Specioza was earning more profits, he thought he would take advantage of her hard work. He went to the land owner and tried to rent the plot at a higher price. Specioza was quite worried, but then gratified by the land owner’s generous reply: “My land used to be worn out and exhausted, but now it has regained fertility because of Specioza. She is deserves to remain on it, since she takes such good care of it.”
Caption: Specioza’s climbing bean crop in a plot under conservation agriculture
Uganda Kabale Program
Led by World Renew with Local Partner PAG