The exercise, being conducted under the ministry’s Monitoring and Evaluation Department, is targeting districts implementing the Sustainable Land Management component of the Climate Smart Agriculture Programme.
In Mayuge District, one of the project areas in the Busoga sub-region, the exercise began with meetings involving district officials before the team engaged local communities in the most affected sub-counties.
The ground-truthing exercise is intended to validate existing data on land degradation while collecting community perspectives on environmental challenges and identifying suitable interventions.
According to findings by the Uganda Bureau of Statistics (UBOS) from 2021, about 133,794 hectares of land in Mayuge District have been degraded, highlighting the scale of the environmental problem.
Samuel Etyang, an official from the ministry, said the exercise is part of Component Two of the Climate Smart Agriculture Programme, which focuses on promoting climate-resilient farming technologies and practices.
“Our goal is to work with stakeholders to identify the most affected sub-counties while ensuring that communities participate in selecting the most appropriate interventions,” Etyang said.
Under the programme, about 3,767 hectares of land are earmarked for restoration in the sub-counties of Baitambogwe, Imanyiro and Bukatuube, where land degradation has significantly affected agricultural productivity.
District Environment Officer Aram Thomas said the district has already established environmental protection committees from village to district level and enacted ordinances aimed at environmental protection.
Community members attributed land degradation to population pressure, large-scale leasing of land for sugarcane growing, and declining fish stocks on nearby lakes, which have pushed communities to rely more heavily on land for survival.
Residents proposed alternative livelihood activities such as fish farming, beekeeping and livestock rearing as ways to reduce pressure on land while improving household incomes.