In Uganda, the average age of a farmer is 50 and the average lifespan in the country is just 56. This means that in Uganda, as in much of Africa, as the old die there will be hardly anyone farming.
Meanwhile, about 60 per cent of the region’s unemployed people are youth. Yet they are leaving the small farms that their parents have worked all their lives to look for city jobs that are rarely found, leaving them idle, anxious and hopeless.
As it turns out, the land they left behind offers the greatest opportunities. For a farmer, just one acre can produce a steady stream of income and healthy food. I know this because I raise 10,000 fish, produce 600-720 piglets, and grow bananas, vegetables, fruits, and fodder every year on my one-acre farm, a half-hour drive from Kampala.
Low-cost technology makes this possible: Drip irrigation, biogas production from pig manure, pesticide production from vermiculture (worm digestion of manure).