Losing a government job after 17 years shattered Ms Anne Arihomugisha’s life. For someone who had long believed that survival depended entirely on a monthly salary, unemployment felt like the end of the road.
The loss plunged her into months of emotional turmoil, uncertainty and depression as she struggled to make sense of life without formal employment.
While many would have remained trapped in despair, Arihomugisha, a resident of Kitala Village, Entebbe, Wakiso District, chose to rebuild, developing the idea of transforming her home into a flourishing urban agribusiness centre, starting with growing vegetables.
After three months of despair, on October 27, 2018, she teamed up with fellow women in her neighbourhood to support each other by growing vegetables at home using money saved from daily household upkeep, a venture that gradually transformed her life.
‘When the job was no more after 17 years, I realised that things can really turn over. In my mind, I was thinking about how I would survive with no salary. I felt like it was the end of life for me,’ she narrates.
Arihomugisha says she started slowly by growing amaranth greens, commonly known as dodo, in a polythene bag mixed with soil on her veranda for both commercial use and home consumption.
‘My first money to earn from the venture was Shs1,000, which was like a million to me after a long time of not earning anything,’ Ms Arihomugisha states.
As time went on, the venture drastically expanded, in 2021 transformed to JERO Farm. What began as a painful personal setback became a life-changing journey of self-reinvention.
She, however, notes that many women are still limited by their husbands from starting businesses, saying this has kept many women’s standards of living low.
Thriving agribusiness hub
While many people in residential areas turn their homes into luxurious spaces with fancy designs, swimming pools, ornamental gardens and sprawling compounds, Ms Arihomugisha chose to transform her home into an environmentally friendly agribusiness hub.
From vegetable gardens and hydroponic systems to livestock, biogas and organic farming, she turned personal tragedy into enterprise, converting her residence into a model of climate-smart urban farming that now feeds families.
She says her half-acre residential space prioritises small-space utilisation and recycling mechanisms for a clean environment, economic development and agro-tourism, with visitors paying Shs30,000 to tour the farm.
She practices organic farming as an environmental sustainability approach for better health, using the half-acre to grow vegetables, spices, food crops and rear livestock such as hens, goats, cows, black soldier flies and fish.
‘I effectively utilise the resources to ensure livestock feed plants and plants feed animals. I have azolla, which feeds birds, black soldier flies, where I get larvae and feed birds, and the birds together with my cows feed my biogas, which I use to cook food,’ she explains.
She echoes the need to promote climate-smart farming in cities to preserve the ozone layer, protect health and ensure environmental conservation amid the poor air quality Kampala and other developing cities face, which increases disease rates.
‘My husband had high cholesterol, but because of eating the organic vegetables we grow, he is now healthy. My mother was in a wheelchair, but because of the vegetables, she is no longer using it.’
Arihomugisha further urges the government to formulate policies that strongly promote urban farming systems, arguing that much of the available urban space is either wrongly used or underutilised.
Hydroponic farming in a compound
At home, she uses a unique hydroponic farming system – a science of soil-less gardening – to grow healthy vegetables using electricity, natural water and connected pipes, earning her a steady monthly income.
She says she earns at least Shs700,000 from selling vegetables, with a monthly input cost of about Shs100,000, creating greenery in dry environments that can fit on verandas, compounds or any place with direct sunlight.
Acquiring the hydroponic farming system costs about Shs5.2m, Shs2.5m or Shs800,000 depending on size, making it adaptable even for small rented urban spaces where the market for vegetables is readily available.
She grows red lettuce, butterhead lettuce, purple and green lettuce, changing vegetable varieties monthly after harvest. She says the initiative is cost-effective and environmentally sustainable.
‘A bad environment, which is contaminated, causes sicknesses that are now common in most homes. Aloe vera is an air cleanser, and if you plant it, you have your air cleansed. It will give you good oxygen in the house, and the environment will be made clean,’ she explains.
She says this method also saves the environment from soil degradation because no chemicals are released, as it mainly relies on rainwater or well water, with tanks refilled every two weeks.
Beyond food production, Ms Arihomugisha has also turned part of her urban farm into a healing garden – a green sanctuary carefully blended with medicinal herbs, spices and aromatic plants designed to promote wellness and relaxation.
Surrounded by lemon-scented herbs, jasmine and other naturally fragrant plants, the garden releases soothing scents into the air, especially during evening hours when the atmosphere becomes calm, cool and refreshing.
Visitors who spend time there breathe in the natural aroma believed to ease stress, relax the mind and offer a therapeutic escape from the noise and pollution of city life.
According to the 2025 World Air Quality Report, Uganda ranked among the world’s most polluted countries, with an annual average PM2.5 concentration of 43 micrograms per cubic metre – more than eight times the World Health Organisation (WHO) recommended safe limit of 5 µg/m³ – while Kampala’s annual average stood even higher at 44.2 µg/m³.
In the same regard, Ms Lillian Nakigozi, founder of the Women Grow Initiative, urges the need to empower vulnerable women with sustainable agricultural skills, focusing on urban and vertical farming.
She says agriculture enables women from struggling families to generate sustainable incomes, promote food security, support economic development and fund social services such as education and health.
‘We want to see more people join the voyage of making Uganda free from hunger, poverty and diseases caused by malnutrition,’ she states.
Ms Nakigozi also urges women farmers to embrace organic farming by avoiding toxic fertilisers that harm the soil, saying this helps restore soil nutrients, protect the environment and produce healthier plants.
‘We are seeing that so many people are encroaching on swamps, which is very dangerous. You can utilise the small space you have without encroaching on swamps or cutting down trees,’ she advises.
As Kampala and other fast-growing cities grapple with worsening air pollution, shrinking green spaces and rising health concerns, urban homes can become more than places of shelter – they can be transformed into centres of healing, sustainability and economic transformation.