Diversity of the On-Farm Crop Dry Spell Adaptation Technologies in Isingiro Town Council, Isingiro District, Uganda

Abstract

Isingiro Town Council is located within Uganda’s diagonal eco-region referred to as the “cattle corridor” and is synonymous with extreme climatic conditions, particularly dry spells, and intermittent floods (Egeru, 2016). Dry spells create a crisis among the highly rain-fed dependent farming Households (HH) in the study area. Some farming practices among HH are believed to contribute to Crop Dry Spell Adaptation (DSA). An exploratory survey was conducted to collect data from 125 crop farmers. The selection of respondents was through purposive and referral sampling methods in this study that were aimed at determining the diversity and extent of implementation of on-farm crop-specific Dry Spell Adaptation Technologies (DSATs) for major crops grown at the HH level. These include Bananas (98.4%), Beans (69.6%), Maize (43.2%) plus Fruits (4.0%) as per results from generated summary tables from Stata 14 analysis. 99.2% of the farmers who can define DSA are aware that some of their farming practices contribute to its attainment. DSATs for bananas include; up-rooting underground corms (75.2%), pruning (72.0%), de-suckering and pruning (70.4%), weeding before seeding (68.8%), mulching (67.2%) and staking with nylon strings or poles (64.0%) among others. DSAT for beans includes; strip/row planting with hoe weeding (68.8%), hoe weeding (68%), and beans-banana inter-cropping (16.8%) among others. strip/row planting with hoe weeding (44.8%), hand weeding (42.4%), and maize-banana inter-cropping (5.6%) among others. DSATs among fruits include; pruning and weeding and mulching each is implemented by 4.8% of the fruit farmers while spraying against flower abortion is done by 4%. planting with manure, watering/irrigation, and using water catchment basins each is implemented by 2.4% of the fruit farming HH among others. Farmers tend to implement diverse DSATs on crops where there they expected more Returns on Investment

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“…Isingiro shares a border with Tanzania in the south and three further districts of Uganda: Kiruhura, Rakai and Ntungamo (Fig 1). These districts are characterised by livestock rearing being the major industry on which residents depend for their livelihood (Adonia, 2013; Bwengye et al, 2023; Mubiru et al, 2023). The district also neighbors Lake Mburo National Game Park which harbours wildlife species susceptible to RVF.…”