Ruth Nashaba has grown vegetables for 15 years. This has been on a small scale, using  basic methods and poor seeds until the intervention of the district agricultural department. In 1992, Nashaba and her village mates formed a group, Kyabaiba Abamwe Women Group in Nyabikungu Parish Rwampara, to escape poverty by pooling resources together  and using proceeds from their small gardens of vegetables. However the income was not sufficient because of poor farming methods.

“We were using poor seedlings and poor farming methods of draining the wetland without adding manure to the soils. Whenever it rained, we would lose some of our crops because of cultivating in the middle of  the wetland until the intervention of extension workers,” she recalls.  They were taught how to use the wetland sustainably by using the periphery of the wetland. They were also taught the use of the existing rivulets to irrigate their crops using watering cans and taking water to their gardens without draining the water away.

Nashaba and her group proved good students and have started reaping big from their plots of land using high value seeds provided by the project. “We have been given high yield seeds of carrots, egg plants, tomatoes, green pepper, cauliflower and radish among others which have done very well in the first harvest,” she says.

Besides working as a group, each individual is encouraged to plant her own garden for home consumption and sale. From her own garden of carrots, she has been able to get Shs60,000 and has yet to sell her cabbage, tomatoes and green pepper for this season. Currently they are preparing their gardens for planting during the dry season to ensure continuity. They hope to get more money then as the supply will be limited because few areas irrigate their crops.
Mr Byaruhanga, an agricultural officer in Mbarara, says the district chose to go to Nyabikungu because, “As a project we wanted farmers who were already practicing vegetable growing and we wanted them to keep the supply even in the dry season by practicing irrigation. With the Nyabikungu, farmers we found them using rudimentary tools and systems of irrigation,” he said.

The project has provided them with high value seeds, irrigation equipment and sustainable methods of using wetlands. The project hopes household incomes will increase and will also ensure food security not only for farmers but for the region. The project has started bearing fruits as Mbarara municipality is now flooded with high value vegetables.

It is now a common phenomenon to see young boys and girls selling vegetables on the streets other than the market since markets are flooded. “From vegetable growing I have  sent my children to secondary schools, built a good house and enjoyed life with my husband like others. The income of the groups has grown thus allowing us to borrow more money to solve our needs,” Nashaba says.

However she says as farmers, they are faced with shortage of land as groups and are forced to hire land for their project, fight with pests that are resistant to pesticides and have to do communal marketing of their produce since they do not have existing markets nearby so they have resorted to middlemen. She is optimistic that with time, they will organise themselves and see how to market their produce as a team and how to reach the market faster as they are dealing in perishables. “We would want to preserve our produce so as not to lose money when they rot,” she said.