The @UgandaFarm is not our name. It is only our twitter handle. Our name is the Uganda Community Farm, or the UCF (ugandafarm.org).
The UCF is a nonprofit social enterprise whose goal is to place the rural poor in the remotest areas of eastern Uganda on a self sustainable path from poverty. The UCF is situated on 12 acres in Namisita, a village in a remote part of Kamuli, in eastern Uganda.
In particular, the main challenge that keep every farmer in our region in chronic poverty, is the absence of reliable markets for our produce.
So, the UCF wants to enable the rural poor in our region turn into more productive citizens, and thus use their own hands to escape poverty, by creating reliable market linkages these farmers’ produce.
Business Model:
The @UgandaFarm is located on a small piece of land. So, despite the words “community farm” in our name, the farmers that the UCF works with, each works on their own land, not on the UCF’s land itself.
Our approach is: we identify a specific crop of interest, and grow it ourselves at the UCF. We then get many other rural poor farmers to do the same, by providing them with initial inputs, & the needed training.
At harvest, we pool our farmers’ produce at the UCF (our office building in Namisita has a big storehouse) from where we then find a big buyer.
This enables us to work with any number of rural poor farmers, across an unlimited geographical area, than we would have been able to — if we followed a traditional business model of “community farms” where all the participating farmers have to work on the same piece of land.
Current work:
Presently, we are working only on white sorghum, but this has all been preliminary work, and we are doing all this without any reliable source of funding. If you can only help us develop develop our intended plant by 2030, by working together with us the UNHUMANLY way, you will be proud of the work that we will do on the grip of poverty in our region.
Past volunteers:
A few international visitors who have physically been at the UCF in the past include: Taylor, Northfield Mount Hermon School, MA (visited 2018); Emily, Northfield Mount Hermon School, Cambridge MA (visited 2018); Neil, Fullwell Mill UK (visited 2018); Ken, Greater Impact Foundation (visited 2016); John, Anya, Claire, Josie, Poppy, Joanna & Alex — Edinburgh University (2016); Tracy, RandomActs.org (2016).
Volunteer photos:
You can find a few more photos of the UCF’s previous volunteers here.
P.S. — You may have also noticed already that one of the 5 unhumanly ways that we are asking people across the globe to help us end extreme poverty, is by making the UCF their second home, or their getaway home in Uganda, where they can come and stay with us whenever they are free, between March 2023 and Dec 31, 2030.
If you plan to be one of them, here is a quick tour of the UCF in photos.
