"and we labor, working with our own hands." 1Co 4.12

July 28, 2023

HANDS - Helping Agricultural New Development and Sustainability - a program of Agape Community Transformation (ACT)

The goal from the beginning has been to help, and the HANDS team has taken various approaches over the years to help address local agricultural needs. When people depend upon their small parcels of land to grow crops for their family's immediate needs, there are many challenges. Over the years, we have come to better understand some of the many challenges that local Muko growers face.

In the beginning, HANDS had a vision of purchasing land and establishing a demonstration farm to showcase newer crop varieties and improve production practices, while also generating income to support operations. Right away this idea hit a snag because land was incredibly expensive. Perhaps not so surprising in a community where most families rely on what they can grow to provide their daily food. But the high cost of land is a significant barrier for local farmers to add to their land holdings and it keeps agricultural lands highly fragmented.

Even though HANDS did not have resources to purchase land, we sought out land leases and began to grow crops to support operations. After multiple attempts, with a variety of crops, over a number of years, HANDS realized that local market price margins couple with labor and land costs simply left no 'excess' for operations. So, we began to look for projects with higher price margins and markets outside Muko sub-county.

Planting Irish Potatoes

In late 2014, mushroom growing seemed to offer a great opportunity. Mushrooms had an export-ready market and mushroom growing did not require significant land use. HANDS began growing mushrooms in 2015 and we facilitated mushroom training for many local residents. They, in turn, established multiple mushroom grower co-ops and began to successfully product mushrooms. Ultimately though, for people in Muko sub-county, cost of materials, mushroom productivity and mushroom market price points were at odds with a profitable operation and gradually almost everybody abandoned the effort. HANDS ceased all mushroom growing activity in mid 2019.

The ACT Mushroom House

From August 2018 to February 2020, a Peace Corp volunteer, Will Buckner, worked with our HANDS program. During that time, we came to realize that HANDS could play a valuable role in providing on-going education to local farmers. Short community-based training sessions were added to some of the heal (health) based programs, and these programs were well-received.

In 2021, HANDS began work with Peace Corps and Harvest Plus to train community members about nutrition, bean agronomy and sweet potato agronomy and supply trainees with new varieties of iron-rich beans and vitamin A-rich, orange-fleshed sweet potatoes. So far, the ACT HANDS Program trained over 500 farmers. And later in 2021, HANDS began training local farmers about nutrition and permagardening techniques. The implementation of these small homestead vegetable gardens can provide a consistent source of household vegetables and help address the common iron and vitamin A nutritional deficiencies. The permagardening approach emphasizes utilization of local vegetables and resources to create and maintain the gardens. Through the programs begun in 2021, HANDS has been able to introduce new crop storage resources, new vegetable varieties to approximately 420 farmers, and later this year, our team will evaluate a new weeding tool that could greatly simplify weed management. If this tool is well-accepted, it could become an item of commerce that could be locally produced.

Onesmas Arinda (purple shirt) HANDS Manager

HANDS continues to seek developments and opportunities that can benefit families by improving agricultural practices and sustainability for growers in Muko sub-county, Uganda.

Dave Molzahn, US HANDS Team Leader