Improving Banana Production and Women’s Access to Land in Uganda
Uganda is one of the leading world producers of bananas, yet smallholder banana farmers remain poorly resourced. They face daily challenges producing, processing and marketing bananas and banana-based products. Women farmers face not only challenges associated with their banana products, but also with gaining and maintaining rights to farmland. ActionAid and its partner organizations are implementing projects and providing aid in Uganda to improve life for all farmers, and empowering women farmers to stand up for their rights.
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Adiya Tibanagwa, a banana farmer, moved to her home in Uganda in 1989 when she married. But 11 years later, her husband left her and later remarried. Adiya, meanwhile, was left to raise their six children alone.
“He tried to bring his new wife and their child here and tried to make me leave,” Adiya said. “He has come back about 10 times now – at first he was very violent and angry towards me.”
Adiya’s family’s vitality depends on her success as a banana farmer. With the land she has, she manages to sell enough bananas to make the money needed for school fees but this means her family often has very little left to eat for themselves. Without her land, she would have virtually no source of income or food.
Adiya eventually sought help from ActionAid and its partner organization, Baina Omugisa, to help her identify laws that would allow her to stay on her land. As a result of their assistance, the Probation and Welfare Office wrote her husband a letter, explaining that if he came back to try to take the land from her again, he would be sent to prison.
“This was last May and since this time my husband has not come back,” Adiya said.
“I think he was very scared by what may happen to him if he did,” she added. “But he doesn’t provide any support for his six children – he cannot throw me off the land that I am using to support them.”
Ugandan coffee farmer Justine Chesang peels matoke, a vegetable growing on her plot of land. “Coffee grows very well in our district, but the main problem is that the price keeps fluctuating - year after year, month after month, and even weekly. When the price drops, I don't get enough money to buy the necessary items for my family like soap, salt and cooking oil,” Justine said. “If I got a better price for coffee I would be able to save, to plan, and to use modern farming methods.”
Copyright © Gideon Mendel/Corbis/ActionAid
Adiya’s story exemplifies the challenges women face daily in Uganda around land and women’s rights. Food security is a concern for most Ugandans, but women must deal with the added stress of fighting for the rights to their own land and products.
Bananas and plantains are vital components of the food system in the tropics. The increasing population in Uganda relies on bananas as a starch source and for adequate calorie consumption. Despite the demand for bananas, poorly resourced farmers are exploited in the market due to prevailing environmental, structural and infrastructural constraints. Women farmers in particular are marginalized not only by these factors but also by issues associated with land rights.
ActionAid's "Economic Empowerment of Women Subsistence Farmers" project addresses and aims to solve three major issues facing female farmers in Uganda; poor soil quality, unfavorable marketing opportunities inhibiting women and issues stemming from the liberalization of the agricultural sector by the government of Uganda in the early 1990s.
To meet these challenges, ActionAid is promoting new banana processing and marketing techniques that will increase farmers’ profits. For example, ActionAid is introducing the value-adding technique to banana farmers that creates a more durable product out of harvested bananas. Value added banana products include banana powder for flavoring, banana flour and banana sauce. Banana fiber can also be extracted and used to make products such as table cloths, bags, paper and greeting cards.
Other project initiatives include helping local farmers create support groups where they can voice their ideas, opinions and concerns to each other, as well as helping farmers create better storage facilities for their products.
We are expecting 3,000 farmers from parishes of Tuban, Tulel, Kono and Kaptum to benefit from the project and create more stable banana products that will ultimately increase their incomes and quality of life.
The projects being implemented by ActionAid and its partner organizations are helping Ugandan banana farmers modernize their farming and business techniques for a brighter, more lucrative future.
