The West Nile Agriculture Improvement and Conservation Project (WENAGIC Project), is a 6-year project that seeks to contribute to the Sustainable Development Goals 1 (end poverty) and Goal 2 (zero hunger) with a goal, “to support a sustainable and equitable food and income security of 450 smallholder farmer households (with 3,150 people) in Yumbe district, Uganda.”

The specific objectives include: (i) To increase smallholder farmers’ agricultural production and productivity by 85%; (ii) To improve the dietary intake of locally available foods in a gender sensitive manner; (iii) To support smallholder farmers to diversify their livelihood activities; and (iv) To build the capacity of smallholder farmer groups into viable village development groups able to meet their member’s needs. 

To date, diversified food is available and is shared equally among men and women. All households have vegetable gardens and fruit trees. Borders of gardens are planted with firewood or timber trees. Already 200 households use improved energy saving stoves. Savings is a norm. Women own productive assets with improved social space and self-esteem from their family economic contributions. Rodo-Kei Rice Producer Cooperative is registered and is functional. It focuses on the production and selling of hurled rice for better incomes. With animal traction technology (ATT) farm sizes are on the rise. As such, extreme poverty reduced from 59% to 27% while food security increased from 74% to 99.8%.

Project Budget: US$ 550,000  

Donor: Sall Family Foundation