Kikandwa Environmental Association

An Overview Of Our Solution

Smallholder farmers of Kasejjere village after realizing that their crop yields were declining, came up with an initiative known as Half+Half1000 Acre Community Forest Project, a nature based conservation similar to Analog Forestry (a system which seeks analog ecosystem with architectural structures and ecological functions similar to original climax or sub climax vegetation), an innovation based on small holder farmers to conserve and restore small forest patches ranging from ¼ acre to 2 acres per household or leaving a piece of land to regenerate naturally into a forest by its own voluntarily to improve adaptive capacity and to address the decline of biodiversity, reduce greenhouse gas emissions and improving soil fertility in order to sustain their farming system on which they are depending on.

Who is this solution impacting?

Community Type

Rural

Organization type

Sem fins lucrativos

Ecosystem (select all that apply)

Forests

Freshwater

Grasslands

Oceans/Coasts

Population impacted

7500

Size of agricultural area

200 acres

Production quantity

25000 kilos

People employed

250

Describe your solution

In the three years at least more than 200 small scale farmers and other community members from different villages in the district were mobilized to understand Half+ Half 1000 Acre Community Forest Project, trained in sustainable farming and environment management, and climate change, its causes and its effect and how they can mitigate and adapt to it, at least 50 acres of forest parches restored by leaving a piece of land to regenerate naturally into a small forest by its own, observed nature’s functions coming back into balance of environmental services such as pollination, water cycles, carbon storage, ecological niches, soil health , white ant termites and others insects which are so good to the soil but had disappeared are coming back, community risks has been lowered down due to improved resiliency to severe weather event, women are using small forest patches to get materials to make hand craft products such as baskets, many local innovations which came as a result of the initiative have been transformed into business enterprises such as the innovation of Kakembo who collect and preserve local vegetables and indigenous tree which are getting extinct.

Describe your implementation

Kikandwa Environmental Association management team mobilized the public specifically the small scale farmers, created awareness on the importance and use of forests and tress and how it contribute to climate, weather changes and biodiversity, carried out sensitization meetings and trainings on sustainable agriculture and environment management, climate change and its causes, its effects and how it can be mitigated and adapted to using the social innovation known as Half+Half 1000 Acre Community Forest, organized advocacy workshops, public dialogue, ordinary meetings, conferences and one to one face to face meetings so that people can get inspired and take on and share the initiative to wider range of people, the project is implemented in Kikandwa sub county in Mityana district in the Central region of Uganda, it is already a successful tested project in Kasejjere villages in Kikandwa community but need replication, we have embarked on mobilizing more farmers and other stakeholders within and outside Kikandwa community throughout the district to take on the initiative, trained them in improved soil and water conservation technologies, agronomic practices, crop harvesting, storage and value addition, many of have started to take on those good practices.

External connections

As farmers in the community, we mobilized ourselves into a group, identify problems and look for solutions on a voluntary basis by ourselves, for several times, we contacted many other stakeholders especially government officials from different ministries and authorities like the national environment management authority (NEMA) for technical advice and assistance, apart from those organizations and people consulted, we have other key target audience in this initiative which included other local leaders, policy makers, NGOs & CBOs, youth & people with disability and private sector who have played great roles in the social innovation, the initiative started at a village level but our aim has been to take it to a higher level, we have identified and increased more key stakeholders nationally and internationally who include recruiting more farmers, local leaders, government officials, local and international NGOs, private sectors, media, academia and cultural institutions in the project to help us to take it to a higher level for up scaling and replication to other areas within and outside the country.

What is the environmental or ecological challenge you are targeting with your solution?

Kikandwa Environmental Association (KEA) was born out of the need to address the alarming low levels of agricultural productivity, high level of food insecurity, low income in addition to protecting natural resources against rapid degradation, after the farmers realized that, their crop yields were declining, the firewood and medicinal plants got from the bush for curing many diseases were disappearing, came up with an innovation using local knowledge and started to conserve and restore small forest patches ranging from ¼ acre to 2 acres per household or leaving a piece of land to regenerate naturally into a forest depending on the land one has to address the decline of biodiversity, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, improve soil fertility while reducing the impact of climate change.

Describe the context in which you are operating

The smallholder farmer through Half+Half1000 Acre community forest project conserve or leave a small piece of land to regenerate into small forest patches per household to address the decline of biodiversity and soil fertility and the other projects which came up as additional social innovations by the community itself made the community resilience to climate change and have the ability to utilize their available resources to respond and withstand adverse situations and to recover from shocks and stresses and vulnerability to achieve inclusive growth, they are practicing sustainable agriculture and accessing seeds and crops which adapt to new weather changes, they use their capacity built to diversity effectively in value chains and to generate more income and nutritional diversity, use numerous indigenous seeds and foods which earlier were neglected and underutilized. They started community supermarket tree nursery, agro tourism enterprise, commercial beekeeping, community school, community innovation resource center, awareness created on land rights and capacity built to improve the sustainability of food production without clearing trees and forests, all have contributed a lot to the wise use of the ecosystem and have made the community resilience, adaptable and self sufficient contributing to the 17 ambitious goals to end poverty, fight inequality, injustice ,hunger and climate change for everyone by 2030, among other goals.

How did you impact natural resource use and greenhouse gas emissions?

The initiative worked as a biological connectivity tool for restoring landscapes, increased biodiversity and forest patches, provided alternatives for farmers to a variety of products for food security diversity to complement their diets, thus enhancing resiliency in face of adverse environmental conditions, supports livelihood development paradigm, where local communities and diverse ecosystems thrive and coexist in better terms with their surroundings by means of increasing capacities, access to markets, improved health and nutrition, nature´s functions come back into a better balance, environmental services are enhanced such as pollination, water and carbon cycles, carbon storage, soil health, community risks are lowered and resiliency improved adapting to severe weather events, ,increase social participation by women, youth, indigenous groups to take active participation and ownership of the initiative reducing inequality contributing to the better management of the natural resources.

Language(s)

The majolity of the community speaks the local language known as Luganda and some few speak english

Water

In the project designing, there is an element to grow fruit trees which develop a deep tap root that absorbs water from far depths and can survive during long droughts or intermittent rains, e.g. avocado and Jack Fruit which provide both food and income, there is also a component of diversified crop production to include crops that mature in two months and do not need large piece of land, to make use of the water in cases where the rain season is very short, example, farmers grow pumpkins and

Food Security/Nutrition

Half+Half 1000 Acre Community Forest Project is based on local communities, including their indigenous knowledge, which is important for sustainably managing resources and responding to ever-evolving opportunities and threats that may affect their indigenous seeds and foods, they use this knowledge innovatively with different actors in the value chain through a market-first approach to overcome constraints along the value chain leading to improved production practices, supply, postharvest hand

Economic/Sustainable Development

.Within this project, conserve the environment as well as increasing on the percentage of biodiversity locally and internationally, fight the risks of malnutrition in the community, reduce obsolete poverty to boost shared prosperity in our organization and community, by doing so we contribute to the reduction of inequality, we also reduce inequality in our organization and our community by being social inclusive bringing state and non state actors on board without discrimination. We make our co

Climate

In this project, we also promote indigenous seeds and traditional foods including traditional pulses such as pigeon peas and cow peas which is important for providing nutrition, improved health, biodiversity conservation and income security to smallholder farmers. Traditional pulses help to nourish the soil and they are climate smart as they simultaneously adapt to climate change and contribute towards mitigating its effects. Very often underutilized, these foods are easy to grow, and usually

Sustainability

Half+Half1000 Acre community forest project and other social innovations made the community resilience to climate change by utilizing their local resources to withstand adverse situations, farmers are accessing seeds and crops which adapt to new weather changes, diversify by using indigenous seeds and foods which earlier were neglected and underutilized, started community supermarket tree nursery, agro tourism enterprise, commercial beekeeping, community school, community innovation resource center, improved the sustainability of food production without clearing trees and forests achieving the wise use of the ecosystem and attaining community resilience and self reliance.

Return on investment

Since this is an innovation based on small holder farmers initiatives to conserve and restore small forest patches, it is anticipated that through campaigns by the farmers themselves can sensitize their fellow farmers on forest patches or piece of land left to regenerate into forests to making 1000 Acre of forest or more conserved in the district and other parts of the country with meager resources or without support, it means that once they get external support will sustainably manage their project, secondly, the design of the project implementation plan has an element of sustainability by involving all key stakeholders at all levels, like the local leaders ,CBO, private sectors, national and international NGOs.

Entrant Image

How could we successfully replicate this solution elsewhere?

Smallholder farmers are the chief custodian of forests and trees and should be looked at as change makers but not receivers only, their projects need to be given technical and financial support from research institutions, policy makers and government for documentation to add value to it. Government should come up with a policy which favor local initiatives and should give incentive to those smallholder farmers for their good work done, should also look into land policies and land laws to make them more farmer friendly and favorable to community forest management, the innovations put in place by smallholder farmers should be looked at by the nation as a blessing for job creation. Half+Half 1000 Acre Community Forest Project should be given special attention for research because it is already tested by the local community with meager resources and it is working, but need backing from researchers, scientists ,government and development partners for expansion to national global scale.

Overview