Why Agriculture should be taught to all children starting in Primary Schools

I continue to advocate for all Ugandan children to be given some formal training in Scientific Agriculture production because most of our citizens in Uganda derive their livelihood on Agriculture. The picture attached shows an innovative system developed for drying grains and must have been designed by an engineer and can only be perfected by someone who knows the challenges of farmers. At the worst, the engineer must have passion for agriculture probably developed from school or from interaction with farmers but may not just be doing a job. How many farmers could possibly purchase such an innovative product if the designer’s mind is for profit making and if the Ugandan government does not purchase in bulk and supply these to cooperatives. Therefore, we need to grow the passion of our citizens in the agricultural sector so that they can grow their innovations beyond money benefit. Even medical doctors need to carry out preventive medicine instead of curative approaches. Doctors can only speak about homestead gardens for a better health well enough if they participated in setting up one either at home or in school during their formative years. It is schools that are best suited for the transfer of scientific knowledge to our communities.

Lawyers should be discussing agriculture law concerned with protecting the rights of farmers. The challenges of price fluctuations are not for economists alone but also the teams that fight for the rights of the poor farmers. Lawyers cannot fight for the rights of maize farmers like the recent aflatoxins case, when Kenya put a ban on Ugandan produced maize, when they do not understand the process of growing maize and the value chain. The lawmakers in the Ugandan parliament should all be taken through a course on agriculture management (for lack of a better term) so that they can become creative and innovative as they organise our communities for development. A leader who knows little about the needs of our communities will do very little to support the required development of our people. This is the real need for agriculture education classes within our schools so that we engage the young in scientific practical agriculture skilling at a very early stage.

The Uganda primary school science curriculum is rich of agriculture topics but taught from the blackboard, yet schools have big chunks of land. I hope the Parish model being introduced in Uganda as a development vehicle will add a concept on education so that our schools participate actively in the development of our communities. In 2019, I wrote a paper with a focus on how the Primary School Science Curriculum can be used in Community development to Dr. Suruma Ezra, the Head of the Prime minister’s delivery unit (PMDU), then as the expert educationist in the unit, at the time when he was pioneering the work on the parish model. Of course, an idea from a nobody can only be put on paper but may never reach the high table.

The parish model is great but will benefit us more if the farmers within this framework are also prepared to promote the learning of agricultural science in our primary schools within the parish. My wish is that even teachers of mathematics are retooled to teach addition, multiplication, and other concepts from a poultry unit in the community as the children feed the chicken and collect eggs. Then the English language teacher could follow this with writing a composition as the social studies classes talk about traditional ways of life using the agricultural context. Many children who start school in Uganda at Primary one (1.8 million in 2015) do not proceed to the next level of secondary school (survival rate of 30.1% , Education sector strategic plan 2007-2015). Our focus should be to provide skills to the children within the most common practices of agriculture before they drop out of school and cannot find meaningful employment within the agriculture sector which is the most common employment area. On the other hand this may also increase their interest in school and as they stay longer they receive more skilling to make them ready for the world of work and hence preparing a better entrepreneurial workforce.

Iam happy the lower secondary curriculum has changed with a focus on Project Based Learning (PBL) and use of ICT. The change further promises certification of skills learnt before the end of the learning cycle. If this curriculum is well implemented, then Uganda will be on the correct path of economic recovery. The next step is to retool the teachers in design and implementation of projects. Teachers should be supported to run group projects using the school grounds and policies adapted to support this. The Presidential initiative on wealth and job creation code named “emyoga program” should target our educationists if we want to build sustainable learning that will impact on the young in schools. I know of some teachers who have become great poultry farmers and their farms could as well be the classrooms for their students. I salute my A-level mathematics classes (2014-2017) who set up the banana mathematical gardens at Gayaza High School farm and thanks to Brian Kibirige (farm manager) and Dr. Semambo Dan (Veterinarian and parent). Teachers need support from practicing experts if we are going to succeed in this approach teaching through school projects. I am sure these banana units still feed Gayaza High school long after the designers have left. The learning in these units was fantastic for my students and I but even more importantly for the other students and teachers who visited from other schools.

I hope Ministry of Agriculture (MAAIF) will find this space important to promote agricultural projects in schools with partners like FAO, Embassy of Netherlands, Belgium, USA, Ireland, and others. We should see a more vibrant effort to grow the relationship between Ministry of Education and that of Agriculture with other MDAs, setting up a taskforce coordinated by the Office of the Prime Minister together with the National planning Authority (NPA). I am confident that the Uganda National Development Plan (NDPIII,2021-25) strategic plan will have a focus on this but our effort should be to interest the President of Uganda in this.

At VVOB education for development, we continue to build the capacity of the agriculture lecturers in the National Teacher colleges (NTCs), so that they train the preset teachers of agriculture practically to enhance practical agriculture learning in schools soon. The challenge now is that agriculture is an elective subject within the new lower secondary curriculum and fewer schools have opted to have it on their timetable, hence very few students are offering the subject. The Ugandan government needs to be very deliberate in accelerating the development of our country by creatively structuring our education system to provide the vital skills of economic growth through a more compulsory approach to education.

My wish is that ALL teachers in Uganda should be skilled in agriculture and supported to teach from the known (agriculture context) to the unknown. Let us apply the science and art we teach to our agricultural context so that schools can transfer good agriculture practices to their communities.

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For further discussions contact ronaldddungu@vvob.org

TEACHING AGRICULTURE PRACTICALLY

The way teachers interpret the curriculum depends greatly on the way they were trained. It is therefore important that if we want the teachers of agriculture to teach with a practical focus then their training must be made practical.

This is why VVOB in Uganda is focusing on capacity development for the agriculture lecturers in the National Teachers College of Mubende and Unyama as well as the instructors within the National Instructors College, Abilonino (NICA) to be able to prepare student teachers with a practical approach.

During the week of 4-8th October 2020 we held a 3 day workshop in which we introduced the lecturers to innovative teaching. The output for each lecturer was to develop 6 innovative lesson plans that would be taught during the second term after the covid-19 pandemic holidays and to a great extent this was achieved. However, in order for the participants to think more critically about the possible innovative and practical lesson plans to develop, we arranged field tours to farms and had practical experiences for them. The lecturers reminded themselves about the practical aspects of farming that they at times speak about theoretically. Hopefully with these simple steps of empowering lecturers at the training institutions, we shall change the way teachers are trained and hence influence the way teachers teach in their schools to adopt a practical approach at all times.

A VISIT TO THE SMACK POULTRY FARM

A VISIT TO CRUZ FRESH STRAWBERRY FARM

The participants enjoyed the exposure visit to the farms and this experience sharpened their thoughts about innovative ways of teaching. We hope that the covid-19 situation will improve soon such that we get to organise many more exposure visits for lecturers who train student teachers.

Playing my simple role as a citizen to transform the lives of my Villagemates

Misombwa village is in Kyampisi subcounty, Mukono District ,11km from Gayaza trading centre (16km from the Capital city of Uganda) and 1 km off the Gayaza-Kayunga road. One would assume that being 27km from the capital city, this village would share the same characteristics like the city.

My village mates have not seen electricity, there is only one primary school-Sitankya Primary School that feeds all the other seven villages around, there is no secondary school, no piped water and the wells are drying. So, you can read between lines that poverty, food insecurity, poor education, unemployment, early pregnancies, poor health, water scarcity and similar words can be used to describe my village.

You can agree with me that this looks like one of the most rural areas in Uganda and yet just 27km from the capital city. Not so many people would like to live in such a village apart from the indigenous habitants who have been born and caught up in such a mess. A few years ago, I decided to buy almost 2 acres of land in this village and start thinking with my Villagemates how we can transform our village.

Of course, this is not something that a non-committed person can dream about especially if your school did not teach you community service. Many of our schools focus on academics and the youth are not empowered in supporting their communities for development. No wonder we see a lot of nepotism and individualism at many of our work places in Uganda and very few leaders seem to know what to do for their people at the local level. I strongly believe the solution is enhanced community service for the children while at school and infused into the curriculum areas through project-based learning. These are words we shall unpack in another discussion.

Working through Dunly Education Consults together with friends and familiar High Schools we have set out on a journey to try and transform my village. Our strategy is to work through the one primary school in my village to which 300 children attend school today. From our research within our village about 600 other children who are within the primary school going age remain at home citing reasons like; school is not relevant, after school what next, my parents asked me to look after the gardens and my siblings, I have to make some money at the coffee collection house and my parents do not value school. When you carefully study their reasons, you would agree with them and it is our role to make school worthy of its name and bring every child of school going age to school and excite them to remain at school. Our suggestion is that school contextualizes the teaching and learning process using the familiar community activities so as to make learning relevant and a solution to the many challenges facing our community people. The activities done at school need to be replicated in the homes of the children through activities designed at the school level and to be carried out by both the parents and their children. So, knowledge must go from school to the community and the children must be taught how to share the most important stories from home to school. Schools need to become marketing centres for the activities done at home and also create real community market days to which produce from home is sold far and wide.

In our strategy we are focusing on Agricultural Education integrated within the curriculum coupled with Project based learning both at school and at home. This is to be supported by learning how to use technology to tell your own story as a marketing strategy for the products coming out of our village. We intend to set up a library space through which local and new knowledge will be archived and shared with my village-mates and other friends using an online space.

Our journey so far:

In March 2019, we worked with the management of the primary school to secure 2 acres of land from one of my village-mates and planted high and fast-growing maize. This work was supported by Gayaza High School through the Farm manager-Mr.Brian Kibirige who provided a tractor and advice for mechanized agriculture and Grain pulse-Uganda led by Mr.Hillary Semana who provided seed and fertilizer plus related advice. We also have an online WhatsApp group of agricultural enthusiasts who are the technical team behind all the agricultural work we are engaging in.  As I write this, today 2^nd June 2019 the maize is almost my height and we are battling the deadly Army worm.

What is exciting is that the local population has been struggling on with such challenges of farming and have built some ideas on how to fight many of the pests which needs to be shared. The school stands in a good position to help the community members share their stories with each other and also reach out to friends far and wide using technology.

We also opened up a High Iron Bean(HIB) garden in April 2019 offered by Technologies for African Agricultural Technologies(TAAT) through a NARO bean team led by Dr. Stanley Nkalubo and Mr. Luyima. We received a good breed of beans and hope to make seeds that will be used to create similar gardens in the village in the next season. The beans are growing well and we also hope to make one or two meals for the children.

In future, we hope to create several gardens in the village and each home provides the school with part of their harvest for the childrens’ lunches. If we achieve this then food security will be enhanced at both the school and at home level.

These gardens are set to be learning gardens and iam happy the teachers at Sitankya Primary School are beginning to develop lessons that use the gardens as teaching aids. We are also piloting a small vegetable garden within the school compound that should provide a daily learning experience for all the visiting parents and friends. Our target is to have many of the lessons using the gardens like the one below as teaching aids and develop knowledge packs to take back home.

 When production increase in the village we hope to create markets for the village produce at the school and find buyers far and wide through our online platforms.

On another related front, we have found some friends from “The Stem Circle” in Australia under the connections of Christian and Helen Williams who have donated two (2) tablets with some learning content charged by solar and 6 solar lights.

We have given the solar lights to the candidates of primary seven- 4 girls and 2 boys who are part of a 21-member class and we hope these will help them find some extra reading time at night. The children told us that after school they have to do a number of home chores like; fetching water, digging, cleaning the house, bathing the young ones, cooking and yet the house falls dark as soon as the day light dwindles. Then at night the one candle that is in the home is used by the adults and has to be regulated to remain with a piece for tomorrow. If it is the paraffin lantern then issues of budgeting for the monthly paraffin set in and no child can use the lantern when the adults have gone to bed. So, in brief the children cannot do any homework or further reading at home. The school day is always occupied by lessons. Now that we are even talking about project-based learning the school day is even going to grow shorter but more interesting and one needs to reflect on what was taught while at home. If the child is empowered with a personalized solar light then they can sit down in a quiet corner at night and read a few lines.

This light will also lead to story telling at night when the child organizes time off to relay what was learnt at school in the past days to the family. This is an activity the teacher of English can make use of within the class by asking the children to write down a composition about “ My experiences at home with the solar light-the good and bad”. The children can present their stories to enhance spoken English and through this solutions to the bad sides mentioned and advice can be found. This exercise can culminate in a small story book typed on our tablets and published online. This is a sample of a great classroom project that we want to see in this school.

Our bigger project aims at encouraging the children to do ten (10) mathematics questions every day to improve on their calculation skills. Discussing with the children when we delivered the 6 solar lights donated for this cause on 1^st June 2019, we came up with the following plan;

If we do 10 revision questions per day, we shall accumulate 70 questions in a week.

This will aggregate to 70x 4 weeks = 280 questions in one month.

Considering the 5 months of June, July, August, September, October before the national exams, the children shall have calculated 280 x 5 months = 1,400 revision questions. By all standards this amount of work will deliver the right attitude and skill for enhanced performance not only in mathematics but also in other subjects. The consistence, resilience, passion, teamwork, collaboration, patience, time management values developed within a child will always transform them to the right citizen with work life skills that we want to have in Uganda. We also agreed to put our minimum acceptable performance bar at 50% of the work output mentioned above which provides a minimum of 700 revision questions.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mmEc3edatek&feature=youtu.be

Our role as the project team is to work with the teachers and provide a revision book with many questions and Gayaza High School is willing to share with us their community service book that already has over 500 questions. The next step is to customize these questions and rewrite them to bring in the context of agricultural education that we want to see in schools.

These questions will also be banked on the 2 tablets that have been donated together with other teaching resources and provide their access to the teachers through the library. The tablets can be borrowed for lessons in the day and the teachers will use these to answer difficult questions like; how does the heartbeat, where do we find Australia/America, how does traffic jam look like in Nairobi/New York? These tablets will also help us share our stories to the whole world through our online platforms. We intend to put some computers within the library when the village is connected to the national electricity grid such that more specific training in basic computer skills is done for both the teachers and children. This library will also focus on other skills development programs in entrepreneurship programs such as; bakery, tailoring, hair dressing and many others.

We are hopeful that we shall increase the enrollment of the children in school, interest their parents in keeping them at school, provide authentic learning at the school, motivate the teachers to provide a worthwhile education to the children, provide the right skilling for the children to support their home development but above all provide a bright future for the children and their teachers.

What we can do to feed children while at school

Today 29th April 2019, One of the leading news papers in Uganda,Daily Monitor ran the article below;I agree with all the issues listed but we need to start engaging with this monster of ” Hunger” in our schools if we are to provide quality education for the learners.

A group of Teachers and Educators have come together to revive Agricultural Education in our schools. Our focus is contextualising the teaching and learning process using agricultural activities. All the subjects taught in our schools can find a teaching aid within the agricultural activities frame work. This network is called the “Teachers and Educators for the Future Farmers Africa-TEFFA”. This literally means Uganda will not die(TEFFA) when we the teachers & educators are looking on. The educators are listed here to be any persons interested in providing agricultural education to schools. So you and me are part of this if you so wish.

The schools who have adopted this thinking are beginning to showcase food security hubs in their fields.

Children at Sitankya Primary School-Mukono District learning about the use of a tractor. Mechanised Agriculture should be made visible to the youth for motivational purposes.

A Tractor planting a 2 acre field of maize for the school supported by Grainpulse(u) Ltd under Hillary Semana who provided the seed and fertiliser. The tractor was offered by Gayaza High School through their community development programme.

LChildren at Sitankya Primary School learning how to do manual planting

Children at Mathematics,Science and Technology(MST) Junior Academy participating in the POWESA exhibition in April 2019 supported by Dr. Emma Naluyima the Director of the School. If the owners of schools know the value of Ag. Educ then the children will receive the right skilling.

SMACK boys learning how to grow Napier Grass to feed the cows supported by               Dr. Semambo Daniel, a veterinary expert.

The Napier Field just after 2 months

School Animals feeding on health Napier Grass

Students from New Horrizon-Mukono with their Farm Manager-Mr. Nelson Majwala learning how to grow High Iron Beans(HIB) supported by NARO-Bean team under the leadership of Dr. Nkalubo Stanley.

The HIB field at SMACK

The HIB field at Sitankya Primary School

Setting up the HIB garden at Gayaza High School

Setting up the HIB garden at Trinity College Nabbingo. It was exciting to see the Headmistress,Mrs. Dorothy Matovu taking the lead with the Fr. Chaplain. This is what we expect to see in all schools.

Hosting a training for students on growing High Iron Beans at SMACK conducted by      Dr. Nkalubo Stanley.

NARO Bean team showcasing the various varieties of beans developed to schools and the public during the Youth Conference held at SMACK in Dec 2018. The TEFFA Project manager-Brian Kibirige hosting volunteers from the Future Farmers of America(FFA) who are supporting TEFFA-Uganda.

I strongly feel that there must be a focused discussion between the Ministry of Education and that of Agriculture to engage schools in redeveloping agricultural education programs for ALL school going children plus their teachers. A lot can be achieved if the science taught in schools can be interpreted in the lense of agricultural activities and taken back home through the children. This will lead to better farming methods at the house holds and better yields where the surplus goes to the market.

Empowering Children to transform communities

Many primary school teachers do not teach the agriculture related science content in detail as required by the National Primary School Science Curriculum in Uganda and this is a lost opportunity for skilling the young to participate in agribusiness at an early age:

At Sitankya Primary School in Mukono District-Uganda we have set out to encourage the teachers to read the curriculum to the detail. We are mobilising all friends to help us understand what we can do in primary schools to empower the children to support their farming communities.

Our journey started by getting the teachers to work in a vegetable garden and have an idea of what it means to engage the children in an out of class activity. We planted cabbages and Sukuma wiki. I thank Mr. Brian Kibirige, a resourceful person and the Farm Manager at Gayaza High School for the energy and knowledge he is lending to this project.  I also want to thank the Headteacher and all the teachers of this school for accepting us to run this research based project at their school.

Next the Children were engaged by the teachers to plant a few more gardens of cabbage. This activity happened with some lesson plans developed at Primary four,five,six and seven to learn about crop growing and caring for crops.

We have also been collaborating with the NARO team that is promoting the High Iron Beans headed by Dr. Nkalubo Stanley. They accepted and conducted a lesson on ” how to plant beans” using the required standards. So we have a garden of beans growing and hope it will be a learning area as well as a food hub. We have been guided to take some parameters, like dates of 50% germination, days to flowering, pod formation and days to physiological maturity. Then we will count pods per plant for randomly selected plants and get averages. Number of seeds per pod etc. These will help in yield estimations in future. This is Science,mathematics,English and social studies. This tells us that learning can be integrated over all the subject areas.

We are interested in seeing how agricultural education transforms  the delivery of the curriculum and how it impacts on the learning of the children. Some story writing has started and we hope it will improve as we go along. Then poetry and musical compositions might follow.

We then embarked on preparing land to grow 2-acres of maize and decided to use a tractor with support from Gayaza High School. We wanted the children to experience mechanised agriculture and have a better picture form in their minds away from the hand and hoe.

The children enjoyed seeing how 2-acres can get ploughed in a almost half a day and can now tell the advantage of mechanised agriculture to manual labour. We have now planted the maize and have also put up a control garden using the hand and hoe.

The children loved the experience of the tractor planting and the time taken to cover 2-acres.

We hope to get some food from this garden as well as conduct several class activities as required by the curriculum. We thank our Friends from GrainPulse who have provided 20kg of Maize seed,100kg of fertiliser and the technical input at planting.

The discussion with the teachers on how to integrate the garden activities into the curriculum is ongoing and we want to develop what works. Remember our interest is in discovering how all these activities will gradually transform the learning space and the impact created on the pupils.

I want to thank all the primary school teachers who have signed up to participate in this discussion and Mr.Mulumba Mathias Muteema from the National Curriculum Development Centre who is providing all the pedagogical expertise.

As we progress we are going to focus on the learning of Science,Technology and Mathematics(STEM) and we are happy to connect to all those who would like to walk this journey with us. I want to thank our friend Christian Williams and his Wife in Australia( Our friend within the Varkey Teacher Ambassador program) who have sent us some equipment (Tablets, Solar Chargers, Solar lights) to use in our STEM discussions. Iam setting up a small library near the school to support this learning beyond the school and into the community.

SMACK LOOKING TO THE FUTURE WITH AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION

This near to two-acre field was planted in October-November 2018 with the help of the students.

The process was integrated in the Senior Five Mathematics curriculum area of constructing flow charts. We hope that the students will now participate in improving the nutrition programme for the animals and also take part in milking.

During the December 2018 holidays we hosted a Youth Conference and visited a number of farmers and schools to learn where all these steps are leading us-ENTREPRENEURSHIP for the youth and the need to start them off while still at school.

We are looking for support to build a cattle barn like this that we saw at Gayaza High School. This will help us to move towards zero grazing,construct a bio-gas plant to provide clean energy(SDG7) and bio-slurry which is an organic manure(SDG13) to fertilise our banana garden.

These fields will not only support the food production process of the school for food security(SDG2) but will also become learning and training fields in the near future. We want to train the teachers on using projects in teaching such that we enhance the quality of education we offer(SDG4). This will help create a skilled labour force that is youthful and can start their own businesses as they leave school(SDG1). Such students will improve on the well being of their families and hence improved health(SDG3) either by setting up production centres at home or being employable in other settings(SDG 8,9&12).

We were happy to host the State Minister for Youth Affairs on the closing day of the conference who concurred with us on the model of educational path and promised to support the innovation if we continue engaging the community to learn with us(SDG 17).

This task of transforming our schools is now being spearheaded by the teachers who have come together to form an organisation called the “Teachers and Educators for the Future Farmers Africa-TEFFA” supported by the Catholic Relief Services-CRS and volunteers from the Future Farmers of America-FFA

Brigadier Colonel Kasura mentoring the teachers from different schools.

Sharing on the way forward for our schools with volunteers from FFA on how to grow good case studies that can be used to tell the story.We hope to continue engaging with Government so as to bring this innovation to all primary and secondary schools plus teacher training collages.

CHANGEMAKER AGRIBUSINESS YOUTH CONFERENCE AT ST. MARY’S COLLEGE KISUBI, UGANDA FROM 7TH DEC – 16TH DEC. 2018

THEME: ENGAGING THE YOUTH INTO AGRIBUSINESS THROUGH THE USE OF INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGIES (ICTs).

Introduction:

St.Mary’s College Kisubi (SMACK) held its first edition of an Agribusiness Youth conference that took place from 7^th December to 15^th December and attracted over 200 participants from different primary and secondary schools around the country, of which the majority were between 13 -20 years old and others were teachers and support staff.

We thank all our sponsors; Uganda Communications Commission(UCC) through RCDF, Ashoka East Africa, Vivo(Shell) Energy, Centenary Bank, Resilient Africa Network(RAN), Uganda Biosciences Center(Ubic), Makerere University-College of Computing, Kyambogo University- Faculty of Vocational Studies, UCU Mukono University-Faculty of Science, NARO-TAAT team and all the parents who sponsored their children.

We thank the different training groups that supported this initiative and all the farms that we visited. We thank all our guests and the media for joining us in this conference and hope our voices will reach many more Ugandans for the development of our country.

Rationale:

The conference brought together students and teachers from schools across the country to learn the different initiatives that they can be engaged in and share their learning with the other participants to enable all groups adopt and replicate models of proven approaches of farming back home and in using ICTs for agribusiness.

The participants at this conference used this opportunity to lay strategies towards rebuilding their school farms into model farms that not only feed the school and support education but also provide extension services to the surrounding communities. The teachers and students discovered that Agribusiness was a fertile ground for application of most of the concepts taught within the Computer Science curriculum at Ordinary level and the Subsidiary Information and Communication Technology curriculum at Advanced level and many other subject curricular in our Ugandan schools. The linkage between the technology skills taught and their application to the real world for the young is what we desire for all schools in Uganda and appeal to all organisations with a similar mind to join us in this initiative.

In undertaking this initiative, we had a focus on the many problems faced within the Agribusiness sector including; communication gaps, poor record keeping, inefficient extension service, un attractive farming systems dominated by the old and uneducated people and unemployment just to mention a few.

Our strategy was to engage the youth in thinking about solving the identified bottlenecks in Agribusiness through the use of ICTs with a target of enabling the youth to get involved in the development of ; mobile applications that are solving farmers’ challenges, specialised applications for farm accounts and other areas, farm management systems, farm journals that record the farm workers foot print, marketing tools such as blogs and the day to day work documents as well as business planning applications among others.

Activities that were undertaken during the conference:

1. The participants were trained in the management and value chains of; Dairy and Animal Nutrition, Poultry, Piggery, Vegetables, Bananas, Beans and Farm machinery.
2. The participants visited high value farms that practice scientific farming as well as institutional farms. This was intended to enable the youth to focus their minds towards creating change in their schools, at home and within their communities.
3. The participants were trained in the use of ICTs in Agribusiness and how they can support collaboration and exchange of knowledge across communities. This training was conducted at three universities; Makerere University, Kyambogo University and Uganda Christian University Mukono.
4. The teachers were encouraged in integrating ICTs for Agribusiness activities within their classroom lesson plans as a sustainability strategy to entrepreneurship skilling within our schools and communities.
5. At the end of the conference all the participants took a tour of Queen Elizabeth National Park to learn more about how ICTs can be used to boost the agri-tourism sector.

Proceedings:

All the events were updated on the conference blog as they unfolded. The link to the blog is www.smackagribusinessblog.wordpress.com

1. Day One

Merging with the official closing day of the school term was the opening day of the conference on 7^th December 2018.

The evening session started with registration for attendance since the participants were to be accommodated in the college quadrangle. At 5:00 p.m., the opening mass commenced, led by the college chaplain, Fr. Stephen Nyanzi.

The night session was for the participants to prepare their sleeping grounds and plan their stay during the conference.

2. Day Two

In the morning session, the Change Makers, clad in garden attire headed to the college farm in four groups and participated in the set agricultural activities. The study areas included; piggery, bananas, vegetables, dairy, animal nutrition and poultry. The students learnt management practices in each of these fields rotating from one area to another.

In the banana section the participants were taught preparation of the garden,carrying out different agronomic practices like mulching, weeding, pruning and manure application.

The participants were also introduced to the growing of High Iron Beans and the training was conducted by Dr. Stanley Nkalubo and his team.

The areas covered in the training of students at the bean demonstration field included the following;

1. Bean breeding:
2. Variety description and maintenance of genetic purity
3. Hybridization (cross pollination) using flowers
4. Bean Agronomic Practices:
5. Land preparation
6. Season timing
7. Bean planting (seeding rate, spacing, row planting, depth of planting)
8. Importance of using quality seed
9. Weeding (earthing up)
10. Identification and control of major Pests and diseases
11. Importance of beans-with special interest to micronutrient enriched beans (high iron and zinc bean):
12. As food
13. Source of income
14. Malnutrition (hidden hunger); Micro nutrient -iron and zinc and importance
15. Other nutrients

In the Dairy section,training was led by Dr. Semambo Dan and the participants learnt alot including,management of calves to weaning,management of Heifers after weaning,organization of the milking parlor,mixing of Dairy Meal for milking animals,putting silage and dairy meal in the feeding trough,driving the milking cows to the milking parlor,milking the cows and proper milking methods,Artificial insemination and how to test for the pregnancy in cows.

The participants were also taught silage making to enhance animal nutrition. The participants were introduced to;land preparation for planting,pPlanting methods Maize/Napier grass for silage making,harvesting of Maize/Napier grass and silage making,types of Silos (Tube, Surface and Surface silos).

In the pig farming section,training was conducted by the primary school children from MST Junior Academy and we thank Dr. Naluyima and her team for training the young in agribusiness. The participants learnt about;management of the piggery,farrowing,processing new litter,treating sick animals,weaning,breeding,feeding and making feeds and record keeping.

In the poultry unit, Mr. Kyanze a former teacher of Chemistry and now a great poultry farmer led the training assisted by one of the trainers from Smart Agribusiness company. The participants learnt about;brooding of Day Old Chicks (DOC) up to three weeks,preparation of the brooder,temperature regulation in the poultry house,adequate water in the Brooder,adequate light for the one-day old chicks,cleanness in the brooder (Feeders and water),vaccinations and Poultry management beyond three weeks.

The training in the vegetable field was conducted by Mr.Bukenya from Bombo Army High School together with the trainers from Smart Agribusiness forum. The students were trained in;carrying out different agronomic practices,transplanting different crops,practicing direct planting ,practicing container gardening using the local materials,carrying out simple irrigation techniques e.g. bottle irrigation and using other irrigation systems.

The hour to lunch was occupied by the opening ceremony with speeches. We were happy to host the Mayor of Entebbe as our Chief guest, the Deputy Chief Administrative Officer-Wakiso District,the Agricultural Expert-National Curriculum Development Centre and our two volunteers from the Future Farmers of America(FFA) brought to us by the Catholic Relief Services(CRS) through the Farmer to Farmer(F2F) programme in Uganda.

Mr. Alisengagha Geoffrey and Mr. Ddungu Ronald who was also the Chairman organising committee,inspired the attendees about the power of agribusiness in Uganda.

The conference was opened by the Mayor of Entebbe who appreciated the organisers for bringing the youth together to rethink about the future of our country. He encouraged the participants to take whatever they were to learn back home and improve on the livelihood of the people in their communities and set up big businesses to provide employment to others.

In the afternoon, the student leaders one from each of the 20 schools represented at the conference were invited to a leadership training conducted by volunteers from the Future Farmers of America. The rest of the participants continued with the training in the fields.

The Catholic Relief Services(CRS) supported the conference by facilitating two volunteers from the United States Agricultural sector who are part of the FFA network. We were happy to host Dr. Nina Crutchfield from the National FFA Organization and Miss. Madison R. Taylor a former student leader in FFA.

The Volunteers started with engaging selected students through a leadership workshop and enabling them share personal experience in agriculture.

The student leaders from each school’s youth agriculture club/chapter around the country met during the first official day of the camp after visiting the school’s farm.  During the workshop, the students reflected on what they had learned during their morning sessions.  After some reflection, the students walked through the concept of finding a WHY in everything they do (especially in agricultural activities).  The outcome was finding it easy to know WHAT and HOW to do something but learning to focus on WHY we do it.  The students then proceeded to share about some of the activities their youth agriculture chapters do at their schools.  Once they finished sharing, they were grouped up to DREAM about what they would like to have their youth agriculture clubs look like in an ideal situation.  They focused on projects they could do/implement into their chapters, how to better their school farms, and ways to get more students involved.  The students were excited to think about the possibilities of the youth agriculture organization at their school and ways to start new projects.

Recommendations: Continue to get the student leaders from each school together to collaborate with one another.  Being able to share ideas and activities allows for greater thinking and cohesion among the chapters throughout Uganda.

In the night session, prospective individuals were tasked to present their business ideas in agribusiness in preparation to the competitive session that was to be held later on in the week.

3. Day three

The day was supposed to start with a visit of some of the participants to a hatchery at 5:00a.m but due to the heavy rains with no power just a few managed to board the bus to the farm. The students were able to see the chicks hatch and the first management practices when handling a newly hatched chick. They then returned in time for breakfast and joined the other team that had started with Mass that Sunday morning.

Then after tea the Change Makers left the college to visit external farms that conduct education tours for youth. The participants boarded three buses destined on different routes and the following farms were visited:

Dr. Naluyima’s farm

Even in her absence, her team did a marvelous job in guiding the future farmers on basics of poultry rearing, banana management, fish and piggery. The highlight was the efficiency in water management at the farm which greatly minimized wastage. The projects surround a primary school called MST Junior Academy that teaches in line with practicality in agriculture. Amazingly, some pupils from this institution were facilitators in the college farm on day two.

Dr. Kabirizi’s farm

No smell of dung or other waste surprised many who got there and she unlocked her secret to ensuring proper sanitation. The participants were taken around her projects and minds were inspired and unlocked.

Ms. Rebecca’s farm

Her motherly care was witnessed by the group that visited her farm. The teacher-turned-farmer found gold in strawberries and shared with them her journey in farming. With the opportunity to contribute to the transplanting process, the group was so disciplined compared to other visitors, as reported by their host. She then allowed them to devour the juicy fruits that were already tempting them as a sign of appreciation for cooperation.

Gayaza High School farm

The group that visited the GHS farm was excited about different students’ agriculture projects having name tags to show the individual who owns them. This had been adopted to establish a closer relationship of students with their projects such that they care for them and make them proud of their efforts.

Dr.Nambatya’s Kwagala Farm.

At Kwagala Farm the participants learnt about value addition and how a small household can be organised as a functional business enterprise. There was a lot to see including the magical cow dung turned into biogas and the amazing bio slurry fertiliser. There was also the display of several mints that are dried and grinded into medicinal products for the better health of our people. The students were also introduced to community support programs visiting some of the outreach community projects run by the farm.

4. Day Four

The day started off with a presentation by an official from Ashoka Fellows-Bryan, who had been assigned the duty of identifying the most powerful ideas that were to be pitched.  He took the participants through some drills that were intended to make them more active and resilient to the challenges in life.

Later on, Joseph Nkandu the Executive Director of NUCAFE delivered a memorable speech about how coffee has improved the life of millions of farmers in Uganda. He ended by donating two boxes of his company product, NUCAFE coffee to the Change Makers so as to energize them.

  The students who had projects to present were given an opportunity to do so and seven students were selected to be mentored by Ashoka and grow them into community youth leaders.

Another powerful presentation was also made by an official from Rural Communications Development Fund, who shed more light on what ICTs are and their role in promoting agribusiness in the modern world.

The day’s sessions ended with Brigadier Kasura’s speech, who donated a cow to the college. He did speak to the teachers about the need to integrate Agribusiness in their day to day classroom work for the benefit of the students and in their personal activities to uplift their income. He later on spent some time with the students and encouraged them to learn the agricultural skills and support their parents develop good business ventures.

On the same day the teachers were engaged in a teachers’ workshop that was attended by over 50 teachers some of whom just came in that day for the workshop.

The volunteers Nina and Madison facilitated and supported a discussion on creating a collaborative Agricultural Education teacher network.

1. Progress with the objective:

• Teachers and educators spent a day working through the Appreciative Inquiry method of strategic planning and implementation. They identified their own training needs related to adopting and implementing agriculture in their instructional efforts. Nine topics emerged from their efforts, prioritizing the top 6 for future efforts as well as individuals capable of providing the identified training.

Training needs, in order of greatest need:

1. How to use available space and resources for implementation
2. Technical ag content integration into academics
3. Improving teaching skills to become student-centered rather than teacher-centered (Problem-based, project-based, & inquiry-based instruction)
4. Communication, advocacy, & leadership training
5. How to collaborate with community, parents, and administrators
6. Digital literacy and ICT training
7. How to create and manage agricultural experiential learning events
8. Securing tools and materials for student projects

 

• Time was dedicated to the creation of the Teachers and Educators of Future Farmers of Africa-TEFFA. Offices were identified, volunteers secured, and elections held. The first TEFFA officers include:

Chair: John Paul Mutesa

Central Region Vice Chair: Christopher Othieno

Northern Region Vice Chair: Francisco Anyama

Eastern Region Vice Chair: Diana Nalubega

Western Region Vice Chair: Moses Baingana Kakooko

Communications: Moreen Aliku

Finance & Project Officer: Brian Kibirige

The Board of Directors is being established but currently identified seats include:

Ronald Ddungu

Mathias Mutema Mulumba

Dr. Daniel Semambo

Teddy Najjemba

Elected Chairperson (John Paul Mutesa)

Elected Finance & Project Officer (Brian Kibirige)

• Time was spent, with educators and YoFFA leaders, brainstorming the creation of agricultural competitive events designed to motivate students to learn agriculture while measuring learning outcomes, teamwork, communication skills, agriculture technical skill attainment, recordkeeping, and innovation.

1. Expected impacts/results:

• The new TEFFA officers are charged with creating a way to deliver the professional development the teachers desire.
• The new TEFFA officers are charged with beginning the creation of competitive events to engage the students, using the brainstorming of the teacher and students as a starting point.
• The new TEFFA officers are charged with taking the agriculture in education initiative forward for adoption by schools across the country.

1. Recommendations:

• Continue seating the Board of Directors. The Board will be instrumental in shaping the future of the organization and helping the newly elected officers follow through with their 3 charges. We hope to use assistance from CRS with forming a constitution and by-laws, seating the board, and educating the volunteers regarding their roles to accomplish the identified objectives.

 

The volunteers further facilitated and supported a discussion on Implementing/Growing Agricultural Education clubs in schools-Youth Future Farmers of Africa ( YoFFA).

1. Progress with the objective:

Model YoFFA teachers were identified and then enlisted in a round-robin rotation. The chapter patrons shared their efforts to start their YoFFA clubs, their best practices, and challenges with their fellow teachers. The others were able to hear from teachers at Gayaza High School, MST Primary School, Bombo Army and St. Mary’s College Kisubi.

 

Expected impacts/results:

Teachers will take the information back to their schools and either start a new YoFFA chapter or improve the one they already have.

1. Recommendations:

Provide this sharing opportunity, with more time allotted, at all future agriculture and professional trainings where teachers are present. Teachers love learning from other teachers who are successful. This is the best route for accelerating adoption of YoFFA in schools. It could also be beneficial for the club leaders to interact with the teachers, sharing what they are learning and how they are creating student-centered activities to engage members.

 

5. Day Five

The conference objective was to introduce the youth to the use of ICTs in the development of the Agribusiness sector. We would like to thank Resilient Africa Network for partnering with us to provide an introductory session of designing a Mobile Application that can support a development area. A team of 9 facilitators was set up to support this training in three different universities. https://www.ranlab.org/

This was the day for the hands-on approach of ICTs, as the Change Makers set out to; Makerere University, Kyambogo University and Uganda Christian University-Mukono.

While in their respective computer laboratories, they had an opportunity to design a sample mobile application using MIT App Inventor software and realized how easy and fun it is.

On the same day another workshop was held for the leaders of education and agriculture in various government areas. The volunteers facilitated a workshop for officials from the Kampala Capital City Authority(KCCA) and Entebbe Municipality using the Discover, Dream, Design, and Destiny technique.

1. Progress with the objective

There were 5 educators and Dr. Semambo present at the meeting. Ms. Rita Kainemirembe working with KCCA and Daniel Ndagga with Entebbe Municipal School Council were able to participate. Time was spent with these 2 individuals discussing opportunities to engage with their schools and students regarding education in agriculture. Madam Kainemirembe shared that she understood they were missing an opportunity to engage their primary students in their KCCA farm and would work to remedy it. She also shared that their district budgets have been set for 2019 and would begin working on 2020 in Feb. It would be likely it will be 2021 before any resources could be dedicated to any district wide initiative.

Madam Kainemirembe requested the team to start making efforts to introduce the concept by participating in their head teacher trainings. She believed that it will take multiple exposures to introduce the concept to gain adoption by the educators.

Mr. Ndagga agreed and ensured he is supportive of the efforts but needs more concrete marketing materials to begin introducing the initiative in his district. After Mr. Ddungu shared the mayor’s comments at the opening session, Mr. Ndagga seemed more interested.

1. Expected impacts/results

In two years, with continued efforts by the TEFFA leadership team, the 2 school districts should have their teachers implementing agriculture concepts as outlined in their curriculums.

1. Recommendations

• The TEFFA Board of Directors maintain communications with Madam Kainemirembe and Mr. Ndagga in an effort to participate in their head teacher trainings.
• The TEFFA leadership create tangible marketing materials to share the initiative with current and future stakeholders.

6. Day Six

The last day of the first phase of the conference was occupied by a talk on financial literacy by Ms. Joy Mukisa of the Private Education Development Network, and this was after an interactive talk by a representative from National Agricultural Research Organization.

The student leaders started the day with a planning workshop facilitated by the volunteers.

The volunteers worked together to deliver more strategic planning sessions to further develop the youth and teacher organizations in Agriculture Education.

In progress, students started developing a working program of activities for their YoFFA chapters to do throughout the year. The students were given three areas to develop activities around; Entrepreneurship, Leadership and Service.  Within these three categories were subcategories, in which they came up with ideas/activities their YoFFA chapters could be more involved in.

• Entrepreneurship
  • Community collaboration
  • ICT Innovation
• Leadership
  • Student collaboration
  • Recreation
  • Recruitment
• Service
  • Caring for poor
  • Caring for the environment

Through brainstorming activities and presenting what some chapters have done in the past, the students created ideas for each of the subcategories and came up with all the details for two of the activities.  The details included what, when, where, who, purpose etc.  The students then placed their flushed-out activities on a calendar to see them written down amongst other group’s ideas.    They were encouraged to bring these ideas and activities back to their chapters when they start school in 2019 and get them implemented in for the new year and further develop the rest of the activities that had come up with for each of the categories.

Recommendations: We recommend that the student leaders in each chapter continue to work with their teachers and patrons to develop a full program of activities based around the three categories stated above as well as implement competitions into their clubs and camps.  We also would recommend working with other chapters/schools in the area to collaborate on events or activities chapters are doing.

Recommendation	Specific Action	Responsible person	By when
1. Create a leadership camp with each chapter’s student leaders, to gain knowledge and skills to bring back to the chapter to further engage members.	Work with CRS and Farmer to Farmer to create a scope of work and find a team of leaders from the United States to facilitate an entire camp based around leadership, so the chapter leaders can take the ideas and concepts back to their school.	TEFFA, Board of Directors and CRS.	By the end of 2020
2. Have collaborative meetings with the school’s chapter leaders whenever holding an event or camp.	At each Gayaza Farm Camp, St. Mary’s College Kisubi Agribusiness Conference and any additional regional or national conferences have a morning or afternoon session for each school’s chapter leaders to collaborate and share ideas of what they have been working on and create plans for future events.	TEFFA and directors of camps.	The next Gayaza Farm Camp/or additional regional camp being implemented.
3. Students should take the lead in each of their youth agriculture chapters to further develop activities within Entrepreneurship, Leadership and Service.	Student leaders should take the program of activities outline they created around entrepreneurship, leadership and service and implement the ideas and activities into their youth agriculture chapters when school starts again. It should be student initiated and driven.	Student leaders and Patrons	Within the next year, by 2019
4. Continue to work toward creating competitive events to motivate students to be further involved in agriculture and YoFFA.	TEFFA should continue to work toward creating a few different competitions based around agriculture industries or commodities in Uganda for students to compete against each other at different regional or national camps/conferences.	TEFFA and Student leaders	By 2020 have 3-5 competitive events at camps for students.
5. Design a conference book and appoint student small group leaders for the next camp	Create a conference guide book with questions and writing prompts centered around the intended learning objectives of the camp and what they can expect to see at the farms/park visited.   Design a way to appoint student small-group leaders in an effort to facilitate logistical pieces and hold students accountable for learning.	Farm Camp directors/teachers participating	Next Gayaza Farm Camp
6. Have designated/built in reflection time using guide booklets after agricultural activities or events, such as visiting farms and the national park.	Build in time to do a reflection after activities throughout the camp or agricultural event using guide book created (see recommendation 5).  This allows students to talk about what they have learned and ways they can take what they learned and show others at school or at home in their communities.  For example, after the farm tours, the youth leaders/teachers could lead discussion on what had gone on throughout the day.  Ask processing questions to get students thinking and reflecting on what they had done during the activity or event.	Student leaders/teachers	After the next agricultural event or camp where students partake in such activities like farm visits.

Exhibitions were then staged outside the main hall to showcase milestones and critical research information by the two organisations.

The first part of the conference was closed on Wednesday 12^th December 2018 at 3:00p.m and the Minister of State in the Ministry of Gender in charge of Youth affairs, Ms. Nakiwala Kiyingi was the guest of honor at the closing ceremony. She encouraged the youth to take the learning back home and begin some projects that would enable them to learn how to make money and become self-reliant.

The evening of the day was crowned with a dinner that capitalized the day.

7. Day 7

The Change Makers woke up very early and got ready for the trip to the national park that had a stopover at Mr. Nyombi Tembo’s Farm. He has a forest farm on over 700 acres and the participants walked some distance into the forest to their amusement. He was later to give a nice talk about planning for the future and his sense of humor kept the message alive. He hosted us to lunch in his compound and provided refreshments to the participants.

We then left and headed for Queen Elizabeth National Park and freshened up for the next day. We thank the management of UWA for giving us free entry to the park and for hosting us for the time we were there.

8. Day 8

The excited Change Makers had a game drive around the park and managed to see elephants, antelopes, buffaloes and warthogs.

Then the group was split into two; with one experiencing a boat ride while the other visited the park museum. On return to the base, lunch was served and the return journey commenced. We arrived tired and just went to sleep.

9. Day 9

The participants woke up early to park and pick a cup of tea ready to go home. Certificates were awarded to each individual after submission of their evaluation about the conference and departures followed.

The volunteers participated in some of the activities designed for the Youth during the National Park tour and identify opportunities for incorporating more learning areas in order to grow stronger advocates for Agricultural Education in the country.

1. Progress with the objective

The trip was a long one. Students were engaged along the way as Madam Katie shared various geographic and geological pieces over the loud speakers and tied them to agricultural practices in the area. The group stopped at Camp George and listened as the former minister-Hon.Nyombi Thembo shared words of wisdom and his vision for the farm he is growing.

1. Expected impact/results

Many students were impressed with the former minister’s story of starting with very little and now creating a plantation. In addition, the ties between geology and agriculture were appreciated. Reportedly, one student from Fort Portal is now requesting his parents take him to their home village so he can survey their land and look for ways to improve their banana crops.

1. Recommendations

• There needs to be more educational strategies implemented during the National Park tour. Time was compressed because of the schedule but valuable learning opportunities could be designed in the future.
• Perhaps a conference guide-book/pamphlet/booklet could be created. I could contain guiding questions for the speakers/farmers they encounter throughout the camp, as well as information/data regarding the farms/park they visit. All of the prompts in the conference book should align to the educational standards students are expected to learn at the camp. Making those items more transparent to the students will increase their learning.
• It would also benefit the students to have small group leaders. These leaders can assist with logistics of moving students from conference piece to conference piece, back on busses, getting up in the morning, getting meals. I imagine them something like the school prefects: older, mature, responsible students the others can look up to and can be trained to be student leaders among their peers.

Teachers and Educators agreed on action plan.

Recommendation	Specific Action	Responsible person	By when
1. Continue seating the TEFFA Board of Directors. The Board will be instrumental in shaping the future of the organization and helping the newly elected officers follow through with their 3 charges.	Determine who should serve on the board and then enlist representatives.	Ronald Ddungu	Spring 2019
2. Provide the opportunity for current YoFFA patrons to share how they formed their chapter at all future agriculture and professional trainings where teachers are present. Teachers love learning from other teachers who are successful. This is the best route for accelerating adoption of YoFFA in schools.	Design a workshop to be conducted at all events where teachers will be present. Identify a facilitator.	TEFFA leadership	Gayaza Farm Camp 2019
3. The TEFFA Board of Directors maintain communications with Madam Kainemirembe and Mr. Ndagga in an effort to participate in their head teacher trainings.	Ongoing	TEFFA Board of Directors	ongoing
4. The TEFFA leadership create tangible marketing materials to share the initiative with current and future stakeholders.	Create tangible documents and even media items to be shared	TEFFA leadership	Spring 2019
5. TEFFA create competitive events to motivate students to learn agriculture	Use the brainstorming work by the teachers as a starting point for creating identified events	TEFFA leadership	Gayaza Farm Camp 2019
6. Design a conference book and appoint student small group leaders for the next camp	Create a conference guide book with questions and writing prompts centered around the intended learning objectives of the camp and what they can expect to see at the farms/park visited.   Design a way to appoint student small-group leaders in an effort to facilitate logistical pieces and hold students accountable for learning.	Farm Camp directors/teachers participating	Next SMACK Farm Camp

 

Observations:

The conference was educative and more interactive since the participants were out in the field physically experiencing what they learn in class. Participation by the Change Makers was great and some of the observations included the following:

• Discipline of participants.
• Good feeding
• Security
• Conducive college environment.
• Wi-Fi
• Open learning and sharing.
• Use of phones to engage the youth in agribusiness, which sparked critical thinking in those who attended

Challenges

• Poor time management by the Change Makers
• Limited Wi-Fi that frustrated real time updates
• Littering of the environment
• Mosquito plague
• Minor cases of theft
• Challenges face by media team:

Limited time to complete the proposed official platform since the team is composed of senior six candidates.

Device malfunction with slowed down the process if taking pictures.

Recommendations

Refining the blog to tell a complete story about the whole conference as the media team works on the official platform.

• Launching the Change Makers Network to establish relationships between students and successful farmers.
• Aggressiveness in time management.
• Taking on the project to other schools.
• Early preparations by the technical team to ensure smooth flow of activities.
• Frequent checkups to curb theft completely.
• Online Magazine for the Change Makers conference.
• For the media team; financial assistance in procuring a new laptop and strong camera.

Vote of thanks

The organizing committee extends sincere appreciation to the attendees for their good conduct and cooperation, and so implores them to be regular participants in the annual event. We would also like to thank the management of St. Mary’s College Kisubi for accepting to host this conference and we hope it will grow into an annual event. We thank the teachers who were part of the organising team from the very start for the valuable contributions in terms of ideas and relevant information.

 

SMACK LAUNCHES ONE CHICK PER CHILD POULTRY PROJECT

A chick for every student at St.Mary’s College Kisubi is the new thinking by the Old boys association-SMACKOBA. It will be exciting if every student was equipped with knowledge and skills required for poultry production. To be able to effectively do this, we need to engage the teachers and get them to actively participate in poultry production.

With these skills and practical engagement, the teachers will then be able to analyse the curriculum and break it down to integrate poultry farming activities.

Yesterday 23^rd November 2018 will go down in the History of SMACK as the day we had our school poultry unit revived. We thank the Old boys and in particular Mr. Adubango Richard who has coordinated this donation. Our wish is that every student owns a bird that lays an egg for him daily to improve on the diet but also to sell and get pocket money. Getting the boys involved in the management practices is where our focus will be. The best approach to this is to contextualise the teaching and learning process using the poultry unit.

If the students visited the poultry unit then they should be allowed to carry out some practical activities such as; immunizing the birds, adding feeds to the troughs, picking the eggs, weighing the birds, record keeping and cleaning around the house among others. These activities would then be integrated by teachers in the learning process as they deliver the subject curriculum content. The English language teacher would be able to identify those who did not participate in any of the activities by asking them to write stories about the experience gained during the activities. The teacher of Mathematics could use the records showing the daily production of eggs in introducing the topic on matrices or use linear programming to plan for the delivery of the eggs to the market using a van and a lorry.

The truth is that the teachers will not integrate these farming principles within their curriculum areas unless they become the farmers themselves and experience all the chain of activities. Our focus should be on enabling the teachers go beyond their classrooms and get involved in entrepreneurship skilling. This will help us get the students to work within the various production areas as they cover their curriculum content. On the other hand, the students believe in their teachers and will remember better what their teachers asked them to do. So, if the teachers today are not asking their students to learn how to produce then in future these students will not be able to get involved in the production processes especially within the agricultural sector and yet Uganda is an agricultural country.

My question to you is “what should we do together to change the mindset of the teacher in Uganda and get them involved in Agribusiness as mentors of their students both at school and at home?”

SMACK STUDENTS HARVEST AND SELL VEGETABLES TO THE SCHOOL’S DINING ROOM

What I did as a senior one student in 1985 at St.Mary’s College Kisubi is exactly what I have experienced today. The faces of the boys as they harvested Sukuma Wiki and Spinach to take to the dining room were beaming brightly with a lot of satisfaction. The Agricultural Club of SMACK is changing the taste of the food by adding a vegetable to the meals every Tuesday of the week. Monday evening is the time for the harvest and when I heard about this new experience I rushed to be the first to report about this story.

Some schools are way ahead of us in this but what is important is that SMACK is doing it now. The boys have been engaged and they are excited to be part of this learning process. We are then sure that in future we shall have the head of a home that is self-reliant and can support his home in providing pesticide free, good and nutritious food.

The teachers are also finding this garden a source of reliable supply of food that they can also access when it is fresh enhancing the nutrition within their homes. When the teachers have healthy families then they will find more time for their school duty and thus enhancing performance.

As a teacher of mathematics that saw the use of straight lines with strict measurements at the planting stage, I can now take the records from the garden and the corresponding revenue to teach many more topics such as; profit and loss, percentage change, statistics and probability, sets, matrices, quadratic equations, linear programming, locus and many others. The far I can go and only be limited by my imagination. In doing this my students will become great advocates of the agricultural sector and look further to increasing on the shelf life of the vegetables while developing the value chain. With the available technologies, research can be done by the youth and more knowledge acquired that will improve on our revenue earnings.

The seven amazing benefits of Sukuma Wiki:

You have probably eaten it all your life, but I bet you you’ll go for second helpings tonight when you realize just how good it actually is for you.

https://www.capitalfm.co.ke/lifestyle/2013/05/13/the-amazing-benefits-of-sukuma-wiki/

On a sad note we have failed to grow tomatoes on the SMACK hill and we need your support in determining the nature of the bacteria that is attacking our tomato plants and how to mitigate it.

Probably it is the first time they are seeing this!!!

SMACK PARENTS TO SUPPORT CONTEXTUALISING THE TEACHING AND LEARNING PROCESS USING AGRICULTURAL ACTIVITIES

Saturday 17^th November,2018 was an amazing day when the Parents of St.Mary’s College Kisubi put on their gumboots and toured the School Farm. The day started with a huge shower but this did not stop the parents from walking through the various farm fields to take a baseline survey of the current situation and start to plan the redevelopment of the farm. The parents moved in groups depending on the time of arrival and I would like to thank the organising committee of the teachers and students for ensuring that each of the parents reached all the corners of the farm.

Starting at the Dairy section, the parents were introduced to the electrical chaff cutter which had just been repaired after years of breakdown. The parents were informed that there was need to buy a diesel engine operated chaff cutter for effectiveness and reduced cost. One of the parents inquired to know if there are solar powered chaff cutters and none of us had an answer to this.

https://www.alibaba.com/showroom/chaff-cutter-uganda.html

The Parents were later to visit the cattle barn that was under improvement to enable the cattle to have a rest place for the night so as to have more feeding time but also drop their waste in a common place. This waste will be collected to feed the bio-gas plant that is yet to be constructed, an offer given by one of the parents. One of the parents came with a technical person to evaluate the capacity of the farm to maintain a bio-gas plant and the team was convinced that we had enough waste from both the dairy and piggery section that can be harvested to feed the plant. We are happy that soon we shall have the construction of the bio-gas plant commencing and the students will be able to learn about alternative sources of energy but also use the bio slurry as an organic fertiliser in the crop fields. This will help us advance in climate smart agriculture approaches to farming a practice that the students can take back home. The parents were informed of the effort to restock the herd of the dairy animals and it was also mentioned that some two parents had already donated a high breed heifer each plus a goat.

In future the students are expected to use the Dairy unit as a study area and will be engaged in a number of activities including; Cleaning of the Parlour, Organization of the milking Parlour, Mixing of Dairy Meal for milking animals, putting silage and dairy meal in the feeding trough, Driving the milking cows to the milking Parlour, Milking the cows and proper milking methods plus studying good record keeping systems.

The parents later visited the Napier grass field that had been set up by the students. This field is almost 1.5 acres and will be used to improve on the nutrition of the cows and limit on the movement of the animals looking for what to eat. The Napier grass was one month old and would be ready three months later. The parents were informed that the field was set up with proper measurements and the activities related to the concepts taught within the mathematics classes. The parents were encouraged to allow the students to pass on what they learn at school to their communities because our citizens need to use scientific approaches to farming. This will be the guiding principle within the training programme in schools adopting the School Agricultural Education programme that we are developing.

https://thekebun.wordpress.com/2008/06/15/planting-napier-grass/

The parents also visited the piggery unit, vegetable gardens, banana gardens, bean field and the house that will accommodate the poultry unit. The parents were informed that the Old boys had promised to donate 2000 chicks and that they would like every student to own one-layer bird.

At the end of the tour the parents were briefed about the forth coming Changemaker Youth Agribusiness conference(7th-16th December 2018) at SMACK and encouraged to register not only their sons but also their daughters and other family friends. The parents carried out a  fundraising for Farm equipment needed at  the event and some paid the conference fee for their sons. https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeB3RpUjEC0QXrpFbKLOMtgItEMX02oD96WLXRmpPeyEO6Gog/viewform

One of the Parents Mrs. Rebecca Azar shared her personal story on Agribusiness and introduced the parents to the growing of berries and in particular Strawberries. She indicated that everything is possible if we focus our mind to it. She mentioned that most people are not aware that straw berries can be grown for commercial purposes and yet they are a money-making crop. She donated a fruit to each of the participants and it was a refreshing taste after the long tour. She invited the parents to visit her farm and learn with her. We also thank her for accepting to host the youth for a learning session during the conference.

The parents thanked the school for having invited them to the tour because it was the beginning of a journey of learning together as parents at SMACK. They agreed to join a common Whats App group through which they can keep mobilising themselves for learning engagements.

The closing prayer was led by our former Head boy-Alendro Godwil who also moved a vote of thanks to the parents for having agreed to join the effort to redevelop the SMACK Farm.