The Acholi Cultural Institution has turned to green technology to empower cultural leaders to boost agricultural productivity and mitigate climate change impacts in the Sub-region.
The cultural institution envisions lifting the socio-economic status of cultural chiefs in the 57 chiefdoms through climate-smart agriculture. The initiative started with the procurement of 57 solar-powered irrigation equipment worth over 90 million Shillings, and these have now been handed over to the chiefs.
Acholi Paramount Chief David Onen Acana II acknowledges that the region is experiencing severe impacts of climate change which has affected agriculture and notes that through the adoption of green technology, such adverse effects can be reversed.
Rwot Acana asked the cultural leaders to utilize the irrigation equipment to engage in all-year-round agriculture to generate income for themselves and added that the cultural institution is looking at empowering the chiefs with livestock adding that they have notified the Ministry of Agriculture, Animal Industry and Fisheries for support.
The Acting Prime Minister of Acholi Cultural Institution Okello Okuna says they expect the cultural leaders to invest in the cultivation of high-value crops that are easily marketable and have high profits. He also asked the cultural leaders to protect the equipment so that they continue helping them and their subjects in the future.
Vincent Sseremba, the President and co-founder of Tulima Solar, the company that supplied the equipment says it’s high time farmers in the region adopted climate-smart technologies to mitigate climate change effects and carry out agriculture even during the off-season.
He noted that the surface pump irrigation equipment supplied produces up to 7000 litres of water per hour and has the capacity to irrigate between 0.5 acres to 2 acres of land.
Continued practices such as commercial charcoal production and tree cutting for timber have seen the Acholi Sub-region lose significant tree cover which has worsened weather patterns. The results have been witnessed in the prolonged dry spells and floods that have been affecting the farmers.
According to the Global Forest Watch report, the Gulu district alone lost 38.7 hectares of tree cover, equivalent to a 6.2 per cent decrease in tree cover from 2001 to 2021, with the largest portion of the forest cover destroyed for charcoal production and timber.
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