Series 2 - Ep 2: Soil Test, Dairy Feeding, Banana and Farmer’s group
Series 2 - Ep 2: Soil Test, Dairy Feeding, Banana and Farmer’s group
Welcome to Shamba Shape Up Uganda!
Today we’re in north of Jinja, Muwangi Bulumba village, Kaiira Parish, Jinja District and we are visiting farmers Joseph and Elizabeth Isabirye.
Isabirye Joseph and Elizabeth Anyango are born and raised in Uganda, they are married with four children the oldest being 13 years and the youngest 6 years.
Joseph and Elizabeth moved to New Zealand after their studies in veterinary and agriculturalist respectively to work on a ranch of 700 heads of cattle. After living there for 16 year they felt it was time for them to move back home and build a farm of their own.
In December of 2019 they moved back to Uganda to start their farming business called Jet Dairy & Poultry Mixed Farms and as fate would have it in 2020 there was a COVID 19 outbreak, everything came to a standstill. Joseph recalls that on the day the nationwide lockdown was put in effect he had just bought 1000 chicks, he couldn’t go home for 2 months and buying animal feed was a challenge.
Their farm and many others were badly affected by this but that didn’t detour the Isabirye’s , during this period they noticed most of the challenges farmers face are due to how they see the world and if farmers can work together, nothing can stop them. A new mission was set to change the farmers mind set.
This week we learn about:
1. Soil fertility and how to improve it
2. Dairy feeding and how to use supplements
3. How to improve banana productivity
4. Advantages of Joining farmer’s groups.
Dairy feed farmer-groups soil-test Banana feeding