Food and
Nutrition Security
Food
insecurity and climate change are, more than ever, the two major global
challenges humanity is facing, and climate change is increasingly perceived as
one of the greatest challenges for food security.
Uganda's vulnerability to climate change is
exacerbated by problems of food insecurity, poverty and weak social
institutions and a rapidly growing population. The country's population is
growing at a rate of 3.02% per year (one of the highest in the world) which
translates into increased demand for food; in turn necessitating increased
agricultural production and a climate resilient agriculture.
Whereas
Uganda is still considered the “regional food basket” due to its high
agricultural production, Food
security is under threat by climate change. The linkages between its impacts on
global food production, price volatility, population growth and nutrition need
to be addressed in order to tackle undernourishment of these more vulnerable
groups.
As agriculture becomes more vulnerable to the
impacts of climate change and future climate change risks and vulnerabilities
are expected to increase; efforts are needed to enhance climate smart
agriculture so as to ensure food security, livelihood improvement, eradication
of poverty to achieve sustainable development
WHAT WE
DO
BIDCAF has worked with
farmers to increase food production levels and food security by training
them in modern agronomic practices, farming as a business, nutrition,
post-harvest handling, value addition and marketing and build
capacities of farmers at local level in an effort to build a climate change
resilient society and generally increase the number of farmers using
climate smart agricultural practises. BIDCAF also influences
seed multiplication and the duplication of successful farming techniques
by farmers which help in mitigating effects of climate change and also
helps them cope with shocks at household level.
Our programs build on and are inspired by the vital roles that women play in smallholder agriculture in Uganda: meeting the food needs of their households, contributing to the development and growth of livelihoods, and working toward sustainable futures for their households and communities.
BIDCAF builds on a market driven approach,
focusing on the development of competitive value chains and farming systems
that will lead to considerable marketable surpluses, contributing to increased
incomes and trade and greater food security. Starting with the market ‘pull’ of
agribusiness development, cluster development will focus on agribusiness and
entrepreneurship in the project area at all levels. This will allow farmer
beneficiaries to seize on the regional opportunities by targeting markets and
trade to neighboring districts, and developing supply chains to regional Agro-processors. To reduce production and transaction costs in the selected
value chains, BIDCAF introduces both technical and institutional innovations to
increase profitability.
BIDCAF promotes and encourage highly adaptive and
productive crop varieties and cultivars in drought-prone, flood-prone and rain
fed crop farming systems, promotes and encourage conservation agriculture and ecologically
compatible cropping systems to increase resilience to the impacts of climate
change.
Encourage and promote agricultural diversification, as well as enhanced post-harvest handling, storage, and value addition techniques.
Support community-based adaptation strategies through expanded and climate-smart extension services.
Promote a gendered climate-smart agriculture
program to reduce the vulnerability of women, youth, and other disadvantaged
groups.