Dr Joji Miyazawa in a rice demonstration garden at NaCCRI

New production technologies to make rice growing eco-friendly

by · The Observer

In February 2022, President Museveni issued a total ban on rice growing in wetlands across the country due to his concern about the rate at which wetlands are drying up because of rice growing among other human activities.

This left thousands of farmers who depend on rice growing as a source of livelihood stranded. It is against this background that the Japanese government through the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) has come up with the ‘Promotion of Sustainable Rice Growing Development Project’ (Eco-PRiDe), a five-year project aimed at ensuring that sustainable eco-friendly rice production technologies are developed and practiced in target areas as well as increase rice productivity.

Additionally, the project aims to release new rice varieties that are environmentally tolerant and market oriented hence enhancing the resilience and profitability of rice production ultimately supporting sustainable practices and improving the livelihoods of farmers. This will be achieved through several strategic initiatives including enhancing the seed supply chain, developing sustainable rice production technologies and strengthening research extension linkages.

While the project is based at the National Crops Resources Research Institute (NaCCRI) at Namulonge, it will focus on two regions; the Eastern region for lowland rice and West Nile for upland rice. At NaCCRI, Japanese and Ugandan agronomists led by Dr Joji Miyazawa are testing eco-friendly rice growing technologies to see if they are suitable with Ugandan conditions, economically viable, not so labour intensive and if when they are better for farmers when practiced in the long run.

One of these innovations is direct sowing which allows farmers to sow rice seeds directly into the field thus eliminating the time consuming and labour-intensive process of transplanting making rice growing more efficient and reduce the cost of production which in turn improves the profitability for the farmers.

Trials that will evaluate three most common rice varieties are currently being carried out to see how well they perform under direct sowing conditions.

“Transplanting is labour intensive so we are going to bring in small scale machinery that can drop the rice seeds directly into the soil and cover them which is much faster and more efficient. Countries like India and Vietnam are doing more of direct sowing than transplanting; the world is moving into that direction and we want to test if it is viable for Ugandan farmers. We hope to bring this technology to Doho irrigation scheme in the Eastern region where most of the low land rice is being grown where we shall use demonstration gardens to show farmers that they are other technologies they can take up to reduce labour costs,” said Miyazawa.

The Eco-PRiDe project also aims at promoting eco-friendly organic sources of fertilisers through use of biochar and converting rice husks into organic fertilizers which not only cuts costs of input for farmers but also environmentally friendly.

“We want to encourage farmers to use organic sources of manure like compost manure. In this way, they will get high yields without spending a lot of money to buy chemical fertilizers when all these organic sources are available,” said Dr Emmanuel Odama, a senior research officer at NARO.

BOOSTING LIVELIHOODS

The project emphasizes the importance of research extension linkage activities to enhance the effectiveness of agricultural practices among farmers. This is being done through an initiative dubbed Musomesa Field School where experts work in the field together with the farmers, train them in sustainable rice farming techniques and then send them out to also train other farmers.

Once they go back into their communities, they also establish demonstration gardens from which other farmers from their communities learn from.

Last week, 28 refugee farmers from West Nile in refugees such as Bidi Bidi and Rhino Camp were trained in different aspects of upland rice production like line planting and organic fertilizer production at NaCCRI in Namulonge.

“The project has not only impacted Ugandans but also the refugee communities especially in the West Nile region where we have had refugee farmers trained in rice production. Uganda farmers have also been trained and all of this is aimed at ensuring that rice production is improved in a sustainable and eco-friendly manner,” Odama said.

Rice farmers from West Nile during a field training at NaCCRI

David Moro Ddumba, a refugee farmer from Rhino refugee camp said he started learning to grow rice in 2020 after seeing that their food production was reducing and they were at risk of lacking what to eat.

Through the Musomesa trainings, he has been trained on how to grow rice better and more profitably and good storage practices so that the seeds remain in good quality for the next planting seasons.

He added that rice has had a great impact on their livelihood hence prompting them to leave simsim because with rice, in acre they harvest 12 to 15 sacks whereas with simsim they would get only two to three basins.

‘’Rice is now our source of livelihood because it is helping us feed our families and send our children to school. JICA gave me 3kg of NERICA rice but in two years, I have harvested 30 sacks from those 3kg where I sell each kg at Shs 4,500,” he said.

At the end of the season, outstanding farmers dubbed ‘rice musomesas’ are selected as farmer instructors based on their consistent attendance, adoption of best practices on their own fields and their leadership in coaching other farmers within their communities.

jjingoernest1@gmail.com

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