The Commissioner for Agricultural Extension in the Ministry of Agriculture, Animal Industry and Fisheries (MAAIF), Dr. Patience Rwamigisa says that the government in 2020 introduced the Micro-scale Irrigation Program, with the aim of increasing the irrigated land to 1.5m hectares by 2040.
Owing to the notorious climate change impact, with rains coming when they are least expected and with extraordinarily long dry spells, gone are days when Ugandan farmers used to predict the planting seasons, let alone estimate their production harvests.
Issa Ssebisinde, the Buvuma Senior Agriculture Engineer says that though Buvuma district, which comprises 52 islands, has readily available water from L. Victoria, it is also greatly affected by the prolonged drought.
Ssebisinde says that besides fishing which is becoming less and less lucrative due to depletion of the lake, a big percentage of the islanders have resorted to farming, but are limited by the insufficient rainfall especially at planting seasons.
Farmers in Buvuma grow maize, bananas, cassava, sweet potatoes, coffee, rice, beans, vegetables, palm oil, among others.
As a result, the Commissioner for Agricultural Extension in the Ministry of Agriculture, Animal Industry and Fisheries (MAAIF), Dr. Patience Rwamigisa says that the government in 2020 introduced the Micro-scale Irrigation Program, with the aim of increasing the irrigated land to 1.5m hectares by 2040.
The five-year irrigation program is part of the Intergovernmental Fiscal Transfer Reform Program (IFTRP) and supported by the World Bank through the Uganda Intergovernmental Fiscal Transfer Program (UgIFT).
The Principal Engineer MAAIF, who is the National Project Coordinator of the Micro-Scale Irrigation Project, Eng. James Tondo Kasozi says the program supports farmers in purchasing the irrigation equipment through a matching grant scheme, in which the cost of the equipment is co-financed with farmers contributing 25% and the government contributing 75%.
Kasozi said the irrigation pumps can serve up to 2.5 acres, which mainly benefits the smallholder farmers aiming at helping them transition from the subsistence mode of farming to commercial agriculture.
“With this project, the government targets facilitating farmers to be able to harvest all year round including during the dry season, transition to higher value crops, such as horticultural crops and coffee, and hit the market when prices are higher,” he said.
He made the remarks during the annual sector coordination workshop where the stakeholders held the UgIFT Micro-Scale Irrigation Program review meeting after winding up in June 2025.
Stakeholders in the meeting held at Ridar Hotel Seeta in Mukono Municipality on Thursday, included district senior agricultural engineers, chief administrative officers, district production officers and a number of MAAIF staff.
Eng. Kasozi disclosed that to date, 5,337 irrigation sites have been installed countrywide, adding that because the demand is still high, the government may consider extending the project’s life span after its expiry.
Opening the meeting, the MAAIF Under Secretary, Aacha Mary Orikiriza who represented the Permanent Secretary, acknowledged players for changing farmers’ mindset to stop playing the role of onlookers and actually begin owning it, saying it is a sign of commitment towards irrigation.
Orikiriza said that the government’s commitment to provide to local governments sh57bn in the 2023/24 financial year as planned is testimony that the irrigation programme is feasible, adding that provision of an additional sh82.3bn for the 2024/25 financial year resulted into registration of remarkable achievement.
Dr. Rwamigisa looked at the need to sustain gross domestic product (GDP) growth at 6.1 % annually, and reduction of poverty levels from 21.4 to 10%. “Go back to your districts, identify which levels you fall in, and establish what actions you need to bring in to get to required levels”, Dr. Rwamigisa charged local government project players.
He also advised them to gauge whether farmers benefiting from the programme are able to generate incomes enabling the government to pay back the money injected into it, noting that if they cannot, it means that MAAIF must identify other means to pay back the loan.
“A lot of resources have been invested in the irrigation schemes; go back and establish whether they can cause transformation, otherwise we will remain in the vicious cycle of borrowing which we want to break”, he noted.
Participants from different districts reported that the program did not pick up at the time of its introduction as the locals did not buy the idea of co-funding over sh5m for the government to give them the irrigation system of solar power ranging between sh20-25m.
Annet Nakidde, the Senior Agriculture Engineer for Kyegegwa district said that they first carried out thorough sensitization of the farmers for them to embrace the program.
“After picking up the idea, many of them willingly paid their money and we processed the irrigation systems. By the end of June when the project ended, we had many in the queue who missed out and they are asking government to provide a successor project,” Nakidde said, adding;
“We first installed systems to 32 farmers, next financial year 32, followed by 56 and the last one we registered 96 who benefitted. At least 32 had shown interest and paid their money but we had to refund”.
Julian Komugisha, the Senior Agriculture Engineers for Sheema district says the project has mostly benefited coffee farmers, banana and animal keepers who are growing pasture for their animals.
Komugisha says that among the beneficiaries is a coffee farmer, Deo Natukunda who previously used to harvest over 40 bags of coffee in a season but after getting the irrigation system, in this coffee harvesting season, he has already harvested 70 bags and he attributes the additional bags to the constant water flow also during the dry season.
“Also, Natukunda’s coffee beans are of a better quality than before because they would face a period of prolonged drought which mostly affected their quality but because of the constant water flow, testimony has a different story,” she said.
The Chief Administrative Officer (CAO) for Pader District, Michael Wanje hailed the government for thinking of a cost-effective irrigation intervention fraught with replacing food production based on traditional systems with the one that has defied low production because of unpredictability of rains.
On challenges encountered by various districts, Wanje said that Pader in particular, was affected by war and needs an intense mind set change for people to accept and adopt the irrigation system.
In addition, he said, owing to the long war period in Acholi sub-region, poverty is very high which makes it difficult for Pader farmers to meet the co-funding requirements.
Conslate Angeyango, the Senior Agriculture Engineer of Nebbi district, concurred that getting the farmers with money for co-funding was a very big hurdle for her.
“We resolved to go through the banks which extended loans to those farmers who had shown interest yet they lacked the capacity to raise the money from their daily savings,” Angeyango stated.