Climate Talk Uganda With Josephine Karungi

Well-maintained machinery like tractors can be a lifeline for farmers preparing their land for cultivation. But sometimes maintaining and repairing this machinery can be time consuming and strewn with obstacles like the lack of spare parts. Fixing these challenges is a crucial part of helping farmers get their gardens planted in a timely way, before the end of the planting season. This in turn helps farmers become more resilient in the face of climate change.

Jacob Olweny, the Regional Manager for the Acholi Sub-Region with the Climate Smart Jobs project, joins us to talk about mechanised agricultural services and how important they are for farmers in Uganda in general, and Acholi in particluar.

The Climate Smart Jobs program has been working with communication partners developing new approaches to covering climate change in the media. As I mention in my introduction to this episode, from Day One the project recognised that climate change information is only useful if it is accessible, understandable and delivered in ways that help people make informed decisions. One of our most significant partners is the jounalism group InfolNile. Today we're joined by two of their leading journalists in Uganda to relfect on what we set out to achieve, what has been accomplished and what are the lessons learned from this partnership. Leonard Namukasa is the Programmes and Strategy Manager with InfoNile and Andrew Aijuka is the Productions Manager, as well as being a journalist engaged in regular climate change reporting. It's a fascinating discussion, and offers many insights into the challenges and opportunities of climate change journalism.

This is a fantastic episode about women, shea, self-reliance, entrepreneurial energy and talent. It’s the story of Blessed Organic Release shea products, founded by our guest, Margaret Laloyo. As she says on the company website:

‘In 2004 I took note of an ‘international investor’ who was buying Shea butter and Shea kernels from local collectors, mostly impoverished rural women in my home area in Acholi. I noted the ‘investor’ was not offering collectors fair trade terms. I took the initiative to learn more about Shea butter and recognized it to be a high quality product. I invested in getting knowledge about the Shea butter value chain, including taking atraining course with the America Shea Butter Institute. I used my new learning and knowledge to successfully bring an honest and charitable approach to the Shea butter market, delivering Premium Grade A Organic Nilotica Shea Products. While ensuring the strongest link in the Lalida Shea value chain, the collectors, are paid fair.’

Margaret talks us through her early days as an entrepreneurial nine-year-old who paid her own school fees by selling orange juice from her father’s trees sweetened with sugar cane at the local market; the foundation of Blessed Organic Release Nilotica Shea; ‘skilling and enabling our strategic partners, thousands of disadvantaged women and youth in Acholi, to earn a living’; climate resilience; and creating economic opportunities for women in local communities. Remarkably, she says, the shea tree, once it becomes productive, can continue to bear fruit for up to three hundred years. That’s a long time, even for a tree.

Our thanks to Margaret Laloyo for taking the time to share her knowledge and experience with us - you can find out more about Blessed Organic Release here: https://blessedorganic.org/what-we-do/

And thanks to you, our listeners. See you next time,

Josephine

Artificial meat. Shampoo. Cooking oil. Flour. All the good things that come from shea.

Raymond Kakuba is the National Co-ordinator of the Nilotica Shea Alliance, and has been working alongide the Climate Smart Jobs project. In this conversation he talks to us about shea products and the economic opportunities that shea cultivation represent for women in particular. (Nilotica, he says, is a premium version of all the shea varieties.) He talks about how historically women have always been intricately involved in shea production, how it empowers them economically, and the importance of maintaining the landscape where shea can grow successfully. Since shea only blooms once a year, work is underway to ensure than women have other ways of earning income at other times of the year including through harvesting honey, agroforestry and bean and soy production. At the same time, destruction of shea trees for charcoal production is a growing problem, as are population pressures, mining and agricultural expansion. Fascinating, complex stuff.

You can find out more about the Nilotica Shea Alliance here:

Thanks for listening, and see you next time -

Josephine

Christopher Atibo is a business model specialist with the Climate Smart Jobs project. But he's a farmer to his bones. As his mother used to say, 'Let's go to work - if you don't work, you don't eat.' In this inspiring episode he tells us how the practice of pfumvudza is helping transfrom the fortunes of women in refugee settlements - and communities in general - in Northen Uganda. We hear how new ways of farming enable women to gain greater economic freedom and greater opportunities to support their families.

You can find out more about the origins of Pfumvudze in one of earlier episodes:

Thanks for listeneing and see you next time.

Joining us in this episode are two of the key people who have been implementing the Uganda Climate Innovation Fund, Brian Ndyaguma and Tobby Ojok. The Climate Smart Jobs project developed the Uganda Climate Innovation Fund to support entrepreneurs coming up with sustainable, economically viable ways of helping local people become more resilient to the challenges of climate change in Northern Uganda, including prolonged drought, unpredictable rains, and declining soil productivity. Brian Ndyaguma is the Team Lead and Tobby Ojok an Agribusiness Specialist. Together they offer valuable insights into how the fund was established, and the problems which it has been designed to address.

You can find out more about one of the Fund's programs - in Kitgum - here:

And you can find out more about the Climate Smart Jobs Project here:

Thanks to our guests on this episode, Brian Ndyaguma and Tobby Ojok, and thank you for listening.

Josephine

Farmers in northern Uganda face many obstacles to success in the face of climate change. Shifting climatic patterns make planning extremely difficult, and access to markets and services is often inconsistent and beset with problems. The Climate Smart Jobs Project - the organisation behind this podcast - exists to design innovative ways of tackling these difficulties. Mathew Rupanga is the Team Leader of the Climate Smart Jobs Project, and he joins me in this episode to talk through the many ways the project is providing smallholder farmers with accessible, sustainable and long lasting solutions.

The approaches are based on a deeply thought-through, systematic approach to meeting the needs of smallholder farmers and other stakeholders. In particular, says Mathew, CSJ has designed WIIGOT, an innovative software platform designed to bridge the gap between smallholder farmers and commercial agents and to provide commercial clarity, transparency and certainty for all sides of the transaction. It's a complex and immersive conversation that is well worth worth your time.

More information about The Climate Smart Jobs Project and WIIGOT can be found here.

Thanks for listening, and see you next time.

Josephine.

A example of how the Climate Smart Jobs Program is having a positive impact, through the lens of Mme Milly Akello's experience in northern Uganda. Following on from our previous episode, ecosystems specialist Solomon Etany joins me in the studio to share the background to Mme Akello's story, and she tells us herself, with real passion and commitment, how the increasing cultivation of cocoa alongside traditional crops can enable farmers to make a better living.

We also talk to Moses Ayena for an overview of cocoa and coffee growing in the region, and the economic opportunities it represents.

The programs dicsussed in the episode are funded and run by the Climate Smart Jobs Initiative. If you'd like to find out more, go to https://www.csj.co.ug/

Special thanks to this week's guests Moses Ayena, Milly Akello and Solomon Etany. And thanks to you for listening - see you next time.

Josephine

'Adag-anii means that we don't want rumours, we want to work.'

Okullo Paul Peter is Managing Director of Adag-Anii Ltd, based in the the Lango sub-region of Uganda. In this chat he has a great story about how his company go its name - 'adag-anii.'

He talks to us about helping farmers adapt to growing cocoa as a cash generating, environmentally responsible alternative to maize. In partnership with the Climate Smart Jobs program, the idea is to help farmers access the market by helping them at all points in the process: preparation, cultivation, harvesting, processing and selling. And the aim is pretty simple when you boil it down - to ease the poverty that many people experience on a daily basis in these regions, partly as a result of climate change.

Cocoa has an interesting history in Uganda, as it turns out. It's been grown here since it was first introduced at the Entebbe Botanical Gardens in 1901. Initially, production was mainly limited to plantations, though - it was only adopted by smallholder producers in 1958. The crop is now grown by an estimated 120,000 smallholder farmers in at least 22 Districts, with more than two-thirds of the national harvest coming from Bundibugyo District; Hoima, Mukono and Kagadi are the other important producing districts.

In the bigger picture, cocoa is now one of the leading agricultural export commodities after coffee, with volumes more than doubling over the past decade. In 2024/25 some 75,545 tonnes, worth US $620 million, were exported to markets in both Asia and Europe. So this shift in priorities that Okullo Paul Peter is speaking about? For farmers, it makes a lot of sense.

Thanks so much to Okullo Paul Peter for taking time to speak with us. If you'd like more info about the Climate Smart Jobs Program, click on this link. Thanks for listening and see you next time,

Josephine

Batteries are a key technology for adapting to cimate change because they provide power on demand. Whether from solar, wind or wave, energy stored in batteries can be accessed at the flick of a switch. Brendan Cronin is CEO of Soleil Power in Kampala - East Africa’s first diversified lithium battery production company. He joins us in studio to explain a bit about how batteries work, how they're developing in the EV sector and what the future might look like for battery development in Uganda.

You can find out more about Soleil Power here:

Thanks for listening and see you next time -

Josephine