KCCA gets Shs 2bn for urban farming
The Netherlands government is to invest 400,000 Euros (Shs 1.7 billion) in the Kampala Capital City Authority model research farm in Kyanja to boost urban farming.
The Kyanja Agriculture resource centre in Nakawa Division is now training urban farmers in soilless growing.
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For many, farming is about having acres upon acres of land.
But this trend is changing with a number of people in urban centres now embracing urban farming in their small backyards.
And in Kampala, the KCCA model research farm is helping many residents acquire relevant skills.
The facility has variety of crops, which can be grown on the small pieces of land in town.
Over 1,000 youths from Kampala districts have been trained at no cost.
The farm has now come up with soilless farming, an innovation that helps farmer’s plant different crops in trays and plates among other plastics without soil.
In this house, there lays plantation grown without solid soil but with water and air to enable the plants to grow.
Dr. Esau Galukande the lead researcher for the projects said that with the increased pressure on land, this type of technology will enable farmers feed the million Ugandans.
The KCCA executive director, Jennifer Musisi, believes innovations in urban farming will help the urban poor to have access to food and improve their living conditions.
This new technology was first tested in Japan and many other African countries have borrowed a leaf from Uganda.
