Upon arrival in Bulambumli
disctrict, I met my key informant and on Sunday we organized to go to the
community church to introduce me and my project to the community at large. The
church is an important stakeholder in the community of Namisuni and Kamu
subcounties. The church has so many followers, so it serves as a gathering
place where messages can easily be passed to a large majority of any given community.
The church leadership agreed that the sensitization on cocoyams is timely, as
the issue of food insecurity heightens with each passing year: currently, many
households have only one meal in a day. They pledged their full support toward
the project. This was an important starting point from which the participatory
work begins
After
gaining community support, I visited farmers to learn about the yam crops. I
was interested to know why the yams are on the decline. Farmers shared that the
government-run National Agriculture Advisory Services is pushing for
commercialization of coffee. Usually yams are intercropped with coffee and
bananas. But as a result of this push, which comes with a high degree of
pesticide use (majorly, Roundup), the chemicals are killing the yams. People
also deliberately spray them, because they believe them to be of low economic
value. This is misinformation, as in other parts of the world – such as Fiji,
Papua Guinea, Nigeria, and the Hawaiian islands - yams are increasingly profitable. Because the government has not put forth an effort to promote or sustain yam production, farmers see little to no value in maintaining them.
While
households struggle to achieve an adequate diet, their sole focus on cash crops
at the expense of food security continues to exacerbate the problem. The yam is
a crop that easily accomplishes a high nutritional profile while growing well
with cash crops, but again the use of pesticides makes traditional
intercropping impossible.
As I return
to the field I will be looking with farmers at economic and nutritional value
of yams. While yams have traditionally grow wild without needing cultivation,
the emergence of commercialization necessitates a new paradigm in yam
production. I will be discussing and exploring with farmers techniques for the
planting, harvesting, and post-harvest handling. I look forward to developing a
demonstration of this process, as well as helping farmers to achieve an
increased level of food security and poverty reduction in their homes and for
the community at large through a return to cocoyams that needs neither capital
input nor new planting material.
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| Uncultivated yam with low yield |
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| A mature cocoyam plant |
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