This is Rural Style
“This is farming rural style!”
Thwack!
“This is how we eat rural style!”
Thwack!
“This is what we do best!”
Thwack!
I am watching Peter Luswata hacking off pieces of fresh pineapple as he tells about Ugandan farming practices. Standing in a field of pineapples, all grown locally and organically, I cannot help but notice how closely his machete deftly chops away at the succulent pineapple grasped in his hand.
His stroke is deft, his timing succinct, and the pineapple is bare and ready for eating in less than three minutes. He used nothing more than a machete, a stump of a tree, and his hands. Replace my hand with his, this prep would have taken about seven minutes longer and resulted with three fingers less.
He hands each of this the fruit of his labour (get it?…sorry couldn’t help myself…). Without a doubt, it is the best pineapple we have ever eaten.
Peter knows this area. He knows the people and their needs. He knows the local practices and which crops thrive here and which do not. Armed with not only a passion for his work, Peter spent many yeras working for large international organizations securing funding for his communities. Not only does he know the terrain and the people, he also knows the workings and the behind the scenes string pulling needed to properly invest in it. After impressive stints at various other organizations working on multi-million dollar grants, Peter took off on his own to start the Uganda Rural Fund (URF).
He had a vision. He had a plan. He knew how to help his people. He just needed a small investment to make it happen.
Three years ago, Kyle Miller, director and co-founder of GO, worked with Peter to obtain a $10,000 grant from Morning Glory to start a local farm. The intent was to provide a large outdoor community center that grew and housed various produce and livestock to demonstrate sustainable and organic methods of farming. The farm itself would act as a live demonstrative lab and also as place where farmers could learn from each other.
“We are farmers. This is what we do best. We just need a little help and we can go a long way on our own,” says Peter.
Upon GO’s visit to URF’s farm, I cannot stress how much of an understatement this is about how far these dollars have gone in the community in just three years.
From the original grant, Peter built and invested in the following farming ventures with the local communities’ help:
• 50 odd goats that live in a multi-tiered housing complex
• 4 cows
• 8 pigs
• 10 chickens
• 3 guinea fowl
• A brick farm house for the workers
• A sustainable water cooling system powered by rain fall
• A rock-solid water pump that provides water for over
• A seed distribution and education system for local farmers to try new crops
• A meeting area with chairs, tables, and a generator for town hall meetings constructed to hold weekly meetings about top farming issues
• A village banking cooperative for both men and women groups to provide farming loans
• Oh, and to all that they also grow tomatoes, peppers, coffee, pineapples, bananas, papaya, sugar cane, cauliflower, cabbage, lettuce, avocados, maize, corn, courgettes, and other various greens
The goat pen houses over 50 goats and was built entirely by local volunteers.
It’s simply astounding how much development has come out of such a small pool of funds. Yet the more Peter describes his work, the more I understand how he could do so much with so little.
Bricks were made by hand with local farmers.
Local communities gave scraps from the table to help the animals grow.
Seed companies donate time and free seeds to encourage development.
The list goes on and on, so let me just put it succinctly: with a small investment, the community is building itself. Not only does this save cost, it also ensures the farm’s validity. A primary focus of this farm is instructing local farmers how to grow various crops and also act as a central point of seed and livestock distribution. The “farm” itself is not really owned by anyone, it is a cooperative of the community.
No one steals from here. No one solitary person gains from this farm. The community is growing and building a better future for themselves. It works because the biggest investment Peter made here was in the hearts and minds of the people.
“People need healthy food to grow and learn. They need this for their families and to sell on the market. The people here just needed a little help. And that’s what we provide,” remarks Peter.
The GO team is proud to provide $3,000 for the URF to house a mill to grind their own seeds.
GO is unspeakably proud to partner with the URF. After meeting with the local farmers, GO and the local community decided to invest $3,000 to build and house grain mill for the crop grown in the area. Currently, the farmers walk up to 20 kilometers carrying their grain and maize on their backs. Not only does this eat up precious time, it also requires the farmers to pay to use mills owned by other businesses. We estimate that at around 500 farmers will use the grain mill every day, stressing the need of the mill. The funds raised by the GO team during their climb of Kilimanjaro are already on the ground and in action for this plan. And, as always, the community itself will run and own the project, build the mill, and handle all the logistics of running the mill.
On the final day of our visit to the URF, Peter organized a meeting with over 100 farmers. The meeting started with a discussion over seed needs for the next year and ended with a distribution of 30 goats to the 30 neediest families.
The GO team was asked to “hand over” the goats to each of the family members. Let me tell you, “handing over a goat” is very easy to write, very difficult to do in person. Goats don’t like to be moved and the first thing you learn is that they kick.
And they kick hard.
So after the first butchery of hand-over that resulted in more bleating, fumbling, scraping, kicking, than any sort of actual movement, I decided to let the community members take over.
After all, they know how to do it best.
Awaiiting a brighter day that they will build for themselves.
- Bartlomiej Jan Skorupa
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