Nutritious crops enhance family life in Uganda

Meet Christine Nakor, a 39-year-old mother of five from the Moroto district of Uganda’s Karamoja region. Christine is a member of Tata Obara farmers’ group, which joined Farm Africa’s work with CARE’s Catalysing Strengthened Policy Action for Healthy Diets and Resilience (CASCADE) programme in August 2023.

The multi-national programme aims to boost the availability and consumption of nutritious diets and enhance the nutritional resilience of households. Farm Africa’s work on the programme is taking place in Uganda, with a focus on increasing women’s agency to make decisions about healthy diets in their households.

Like many women in the group, Christine attributes the change in her family’s nutrition, income, household decision-making power and wellbeing to the project.

Group members visit the learning site.

Before joining CASCADE, Christine had limited knowledge and experience in producing, preparing and consuming nutritious meals for her family, aside from using nutrition supplements with one of her babies.

The family faced difficulties accessing a healthy diet, struggled with low-yield harvests and Christine had little decision-making power compared to her husband, leaving her responsible for the household chores.

Identifying these gaps in knowledge, Farm Africa offered training to the group members in climate-smart agriculture, nutrition-sensitive farming and the Farmer Field Business approach. The approach involved setting up demonstration plots to showcase agricultural best practices for producing nutritious crops such as iron-rich beans, orange-fleshed sweet potatoes and vitamin A-rich maize.

The project also implemented a gender transformative approach to address existing social and gender norms that impact women and children’s access to nutrition. Men and boys involved in the initiative encouraged others to adopt this new way of thinking.

Christine waters her vegetable garden.

In addition, the group received cooking demonstrations and guidance on adopting a nutritious diet using the five-finger model, in which a plate contains animal protein, plant protein, carbohydrates, vegetables and fruit. The participants were encouraged to use locally available food to make meals including all of these categories.

The training also encouraged men to welcome their wives’ participation in family decision-making, support household chores and ensure family resources are shared equitably.

Applying the techniques she learnt to her own practice, Christine now grows a variety of vegetables in her garden including cowpeas, tomatoes, okra, collard greens and aubergines and has recently added nutrient-rich sweet potatoes and vitamin A enriched maize.

During the first season of 2024, she harvested 175kg of maize, keeping 75kg to plant next season and to share with neighbours, and conserving the other 100kg for her family’s consumption. To diversify her output, Christine has also planted fruit trees and started rearing chickens.

Christine has worked to improve her family’s nutrition, and has noted the change in their wellbeing after participating in the project. Her children look healthy and her husband loves the home-cooked food.

Christine smiled as she testified to her family’s newfound happiness. She and her husband work alongside one another now, and consult each other when making family decisions.

Christine’s group-managed learning site.

But Christine’s vegetable production is not limited to home consumption. Together with other group members, she helps to maintain vegetable plots along the riverside. The produce is sold to create an income of approximately 20,000 Ugandan Shillings (UGX) per week. Christine was also able to sell her own orange-fleshed sweet potatoes, worth UGX 100,000, to other groups.

Looking to the future, Christine plans to scale up her production of vegetables including orange-fleshed sweet potato, vitamin A-rich maize and iron-rich beans due to their nutritional value and income-generating potential.

Christine also hopes her farming will inspire other women to improve their families’ wellbeing too.