A section of women in the districts of Kabale, Kisoro and Rubanda have embarked on the establishment of Kitchen garden technologies as a way of cutting expenses on vegetables, which they have been buying from markets daily.
Kitchen gardens are small-scale gardens designed for growing vegetables, herbs, and fruits close to the home.
They provide fresh produce for daily cooking and enhance culinary experiences.
About 100 members from the Nyamiyaga-Kaforero community have ventured into the practice, their leader, Ms Innocent Kyarisiima, said on Friday.
This is an initiative of Common Ground Project, which helped to skill them with the technology.
Ms Kyarisiima said they have been supported in producing vegetables for home use and income generation since the surplus vegetables are sold in the nearby markets.
‘I used to spend about Shs50,000 monthly to buy vegetables such as onions, tomatoes, ggg plants, green pepper, spinach, odo and cabbages for home use.”
However, after establishing the kitchen garden where all these items are produced, she now saves the money for buying other manufactured household items such as salt, sugar, replacing broken plates and cups without bothering her husband as it was before.
She adds: ”I am very sure that if all the women in this country embrace Kitchen garden technology, cases of domestic violence and malnutrition would reduce.”
Another community woman leader, Ms Loyda Tushabe, who is a resident of Kiruruma village in Ikamiro Parish, Muko Sub-County in Rubanda District, re-echoed the beauty of kitchen garden technologies but mentioned the scarcity of water for irrigating the vegetable gardens during the dry season as a major challenge they face in sustaining crop production.
‘During the rainy seasons, we get a lot from Kitchen gardens, unlike in the dry season where we struggle to maintain them because of the scarcity of water for irrigation.”
She believes that if the government and its development partners can give mini-irrigation schemes or water harvesting tanks, they can produce vegetables throughout the year regardless of the season,’ Ms Tushabe said.
Mr Gilvazio Byaruhanga said the initiative has reduced friction within households as the pressure of providing for food was imminent.
‘After my wife established a kitchen garden at our home one year ago, I immediately started saving the money I used to spend on buying vegetables from markets.”
He now intends to use money he is saving to buy an extra piece of land to boost vegetable growing and also get a loan from their village savings and credit organisation to buy trees and also venture into goat farming as an alternative source of income.
Mr Rogers Mfitumukiza, an agricultural expert at Common Ground Project in Kigezi Region, said that the Kitchen Garden concept was rolled out after a baseline survey conducted in 2023 showed that several households were affected by poor nutrition and limited incomes because of poor farming practices.
‘A total of 40,000 households in the Kigezi Region have been trained on the establishment of the Kitchen garden concept, and these households have been clustered in 36 communities for easy mobilisation and training.”
Noting that: ”We have identified role model farmers that we further trained as Integrated Farm Trainers (IFTs) to assist in training other local farmers to take up the modern farming technologies that boost food security and income generation at the household level.”
For the sustainability of the Kitchen garden concept, Mr Mfitumukiza said that while the organisation provided some water harvesting tanks and constructed protected water springs to address the challenge of water scarcity among the people in the project area.
They have also linked the farmers to agro-input dealers and seed-selling companies to help them with skills on disease control, quality seed selection and general crop management practices.