By Joseph Abiria

Arua

Refugees and host communities in the districts of Yumbe, Terego and Madi Okollo have received start up kits inform of animal traction to boost farm production and enhance food security.

Implementing a project code named “Strengthening Resilience of Farming and Refugee Households in West Nile”, Welt Hunger Hilfe with funding from GIZ donated 240 bulls and ox-ploughs for opening up land aimed to increase food production.

40 groups with 3 members each received 6 bulls. Emmanuel Malish a refugee and a beneficiary says with this support from Welt Hunger, their livelihoods will automatically change for the better. “The way we are now producing products, an acre we can now plough within two days, we are in a group, we are able to dig for one, then we rotate to the next member in the group”, he explained.

The core objective of the project is to hasten food security and economically empower refugees and their host communities to live a productive life.

Joel Akuaku, the Monitoring and Evaluation Officer at Welt Hunger explains that the use of animal traction is cost effective with high productivity levels. “Okay, the major objective of this project is to ensure resilience of farmers in terms of food security and for us, one thing we look at is if we are to ensure resilience of our farmers, of our community, one of the most important aspect is to ensure that our people are able to produce in large quantity using the technology that we actually brought in place.” he noted.

While handing over the bulls to beneficiaries, The Project Manager of Welt Hunger, Anthony Otude, remarked that animal traction is a sure deal that will increase food production in the settlements. “The refugees have stayed here for a long time, that’s why we are bringing in the aspect of animal traction and that’s why today we are distributing the bulls in the groups, each group is going to receive 3 pairs of bulls so that they are able to open more land as they have to produce more crops for their families.” he explained.

But Martin Koriang Naburi, the Assistant Settlement Commandant at Imvepi refugee settlement noted that this intervention by Welt Hunger is timely because of the recent food cuts given to refugees. “This project which Welt Hunger has brought is very timely, it has come at the right time as we may all be aware that our refugees we are looking after at imvepi settlement, they have been getting some food assistance from World Food Programme especially in that funding has gone down, so you find that some people will not be receiving food.” he said.

Meanwhile, the district speaker of Terego, Olema Kasto urged management of Welt Hunger to provide accountability of value for money while implementing projects. “We will always be supporting you, we will always be at your back to ensure everything you put in place is there to benefit the farmers, these are tax payers monies of the people of German, every coin must count, we appreciate GIZ for the support they have given to you,” he stressed.

Welt hunger hilfe is implementing a one year project that started last November, “strengthening and resilience of farming” project that attracted funding worth 3 billion Uganda shillings

COVER PHOTO: Some of the bulls that were donated by Welt Hunger Hilfe By Joseph Abiria