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Fields of knowledge: changing agriculture in Uganda

In Uganda, farmers face mounting challenges from climate change, low productivity, and food insecurity. Through the South-South and Triangular Cooperation project, FAO, in partnership with China is helping smallholder farmers adopt resilient agricultural practices, improve yields, and build a more sustainable future. This initiative represents FAO’s longest-running South-South collaboration, marking over a decade of knowledge exchange and field impact.

Producers: Flora Trouilloud; Ruki Inoshita
Presenter: Njambi Gicharu
Sound: Eric Deleu
Editorial supervision: Tszmei Ho
©FAO/Stuart Tibaweswa

Asset date 05/26/2025

Language English

Script Podcast Script: FAO Podcast on the Uganda South-South Cooperation Project

Source: FAO Audio

Realase date: May 26, 2025

In Uganda, at the heart of East Africa, farmers face a paradox. The soils are rich, but the harvests are small. Agriculture is a lifeline here. But low productivity, combined with the increasing impacts of climate change, has left many rural communities vulnerable.

In 2012, a new chapter began. Uganda joined forces with China and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, FAO, under a South-South and Triangular Cooperation framework: a model where developing countries share knowledge and proven solutions with each other.

Under this initiative, agricultural experts dispatched by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs of China, including rice breeders, livestock experts, aquaculture specialists, and agronomists, were deployed to Uganda.

They came to work with farmers. Over the years, modern farming techniques, new crop varieties and innovative practices previously tested in rural China, made their way into Uganda’s landscape.

One of those stories begins with foxtail millet, a variety new to Uganda, unlike the already familiar pearl and finger millets cultivated in the country.

Chapter 1: Charles and foxtail millet

Charles Swama, Foxtail millet farmer:
“I never had any idea about foxtail millet.”

Charles Swama, a farmer in Butaleja, eastern Uganda. The introduction of foxtail millet, a nutrient-rich crop with distinctive bristly seed heads resembling a fox’s tail, marked a turning point for him and his four children.

Charles Swama, Foxtail millet farmer:
“The Chinese experts told us that this millet is a high yielding, as you compare it to our local varieties.”
“They started teaching me how to grow foxtail millet.”
“Within one acre we are able to harvest 1800kg of millet. Then I said, wow, I need also to start this one, because ours, these local varieties, where from one acre you can't get even 500kg from one acre.”
“At least every season I have to plant foxtail millet.”
“Whenever I finish harvesting, we always prepare food from millet for the community to taste and they have liked it.”
“My home is food secure. Also there is money I get from it.”

Renwu Wei, a foxtail millet specialist from China who works closely with farmers like Charles in Butaleja, explains the unique qualities of the crop.

Renwu Wei:
“We come here just to help the farmers improve their livelihoods. This millet is a new variety from China. Growing is very simple but the yields is very high.”

Chapter 2: Anastasia

In another part of the Butaleja district, in a tiny village known as Scheme View, Anastasia Mwamula has also benefited from the transformative power of the South-South cooperation. This 51-year-old woman, dressed in shades of brown and black, stands barefoot by her fish pond, its still waters reflecting the clouds above. The pond is tucked between her lush, green rice fields. Here, Anastasia raises catfish and Nile Tilapia fish. She recalls the challenges she faced when she first began farming fish.

Anastasia Mwamula (local language):
“In the beginning, I faced challenges. I had no experience with fish, so feeding them was very expensive. I didn't know exactly where to get the feeds or what type of food to give them. Then the fish started dying because water wasn’t sufficient for them and my pounds were not up to good standards.”

Taihua Chen, a Chinese aquaculture expert, taught her to use snails and cabbage leaves as natural fish feed.

Taihua Chen, Aquaculture expert:
"There are large areas of rice fields in Butaleja. There’s a channel between the rice fields. There are loads of these snails in the channel. Snails is the best feed for the fish, catfish and tilapia. They like to eat them.”

By using this simple technique, Anastasia reduced her costs. This allowed her to reinvest in purchasing more fish. She doubled her fish production to more than 100 kilograms.

As Anastasia witnessed her fish production grow, her ambition also expanded. She began exploring new techniques, including one she had heard about on the radio: rice-fish farming, an ancient practice from China that dates back over 1,700 years.
Taihua Chen explains the mutual benefiting mechanism of cultivating rice and fish together in the same pond:

Taihua Chen, Aquaculture expert:
“Fish and rice help each other. Because the fish eat the pests on the rice, and the waste from the fish is a good fertilizer for the rice.”

Taihua Chen has introduced the fundamentals of this innovative farming method to Anastasia. She is preparing to adopt and implement them soon.

Chapter 3: Robert

Rice is both an important staple food and a major income source for many people in Uganda. With demand on the rise, there's an increasing urgency to improve productivity.

Robert Segula is one of the most experienced rice farmers in Butaleja.

Robert Segula:
“Farming is very good. You produce what you eat, and you eat what you produce.”

He has been cultivating rice for 25 years. He took over the family farm following his father’s passing.

He has been cultivating rice for 25 years. He took over the family farm following his father’s passing.

Like many farmers in the Butaleja district, Uganda’s traditional rice-growing region, he relied on local varieties for decades. But yields were low, and farming methods had hardly changed over the generations.

And like thousands of other rice farmers, he has also received expert training as part of the FAO-China-Uganda South-South and Triangular Cooperation project. Robert was introduced to the hybrid rice by Chinese experts. Though the seeds come at a higher cost, the advantages are clear. This hybrid rice matures in just 125 days instead of the usual six months, and more than doubles yields.

Robert Segula:
“I was getting around 500kg, but now I’m getting over 2000kg per acre, per season.”
“Before the Chinese experts came here, we were growing traditional varieties which were low yielding.”

Robert learned how to transplant the hybrid rice seedlings correctly, how to prepare the land with proper digging and fertilization, the optimal spacing between the plants in order to maximize production and when to harvest.

With more frequent droughts and growing concerns over soil erosion and landslides, farmers need varieties that can withstand tougher conditions. This new rice matures faster, and equally crucial, uses water more efficiently.

By increasing rice production, this variety can help rural farmers boost their incomes and improve their food security and nutrition.

Chapter 4: Climate Change

Robert Segula's story is an example of how, in the face of climate change, innovative practices and farming techniques help farmers improve their yields. For a country where over 70% of people depend on agriculture, the stakes are high.

According to Antonio Querido, FAO Representative in Uganda, the South-South Cooperation project breaks the traditional dichotomy between donors and recipients by ensuring that the sharing of technology and knowledge is adapted to the local context.

FAO Representative Antonio Querido:
“We want farmers also to appropriate of the agronomic practices that are important.”
“The role of the Chinese experts is to ensure that these agronomic practices are also deployed along with the technology, to ensure that they obtain the same yield that we know that is possible.”

Her Excellency, Jessica Alupo, Vice President of Uganda, believes that the project can play a crucial role in securing the region’s future.

Jessica Alupo, Vice President of Uganda:
“A continent that cannot feed themselves cannot guarantee their future.”
“The fact that Uganda is an agricultural country, and when we talk about enhancing technology, capacity building, training farmers, you are exactly translating those farmers from subsistence farming to commercial farming.”
“So it’s a very important project which has had big milestones in the lives of the rural people.”

For more than a decade, the FAO-China-Uganda South-South Cooperation has grown into the longest-running project of its kind, bringing 56 agricultural experts from China to Uganda.

The knowledge and techniques it has shared will continue to be passed from hand to hand, adapted, applied, and carried forward.

The land will keep changing and so will the climate, but the farmers will be building on what they have learned, one harvest at a time.

Duration 11m5s

File size 183.74 MB

UNFAO Source FAO Audio

Unique identifier UF1A1AU