Rakai District marked World Food Day on October 21, a few days after the rest of the world celebrated the event on October 16. The day’s activities were held at Kalisizo Rural Sub-county headquarters where farmers displayed some of their best farm products.

As one visited one stall after another viewing the various food items displayed, there was something rather unique and quite encouraging worth noting. There were more packed or bottled items than just the green fresh fruits and vegetables. In the past few years most of our agricultural shows in Uganda were generally characterised by items such as the biggest bunches of bananas, the biggest paw-paws and the heaviest animals and birds. Some of the displayed crop items usually began to deteriorate before the shows ended.

Huge yams, big bunches of bananas, large animals and birds are certainly still our target as farmers but they are not on their own such a strong protection against food insecurity. Left in their natural form for just a few days after harvesting the crops deteriorate and rot. Such food losses have been going on unchecked for a long time in Uganda and their contribution to food insecurity and poverty has been unacceptably high. Which is why it was so encouraging that at most of the stalls at the Rakai World Food Day event the attendants displayed such items as bottles of fruit juice, tins of vegetable powder, and packets of yam flour, beside the huge tubers of cassava and the large fruits that they were proud to have produced. The farmers were beginning to appreciate the benefits of food processing and had picked the skills of food preservation. Now the show goers were learning about food preservation and food processing, otherwise known as value addition, besides better farming skills.

The stall attendants, most of them women, also took time to explain to the visitors attending the event the various nutritive and medicinal values of the various foodstuffs displayed. Janet Namuli, chairperson of Kutetenkanya Women’s Group, Lwankoni said each one of the members of her group has a vegetable garden at her home and an orchard.

At their stall they had the green vegetables and the flesh fruits but they also had tins of vegetable powder and bottles of preserved fruit juice. “The expiry date for the juice is two months from now,” Ms Namuli explained. The surplus powdered vegetables and juice are sold by the group to generate income. The market for the products she said was still a problem, although to me this seemed a small issue that would soon be sorted out as more people learnt about the great quality of their products. I personally left the place a lot poorer on account of their irresistible juice.

At their stall, Mutima Food Processors from Beteremu in Nabigasa Sub-county displayed tins of ekipooli (crushed groundnuts), tins of soya flour, and tins of katunkuma powder. They also had paw-paw seeds powder which they said is a relief for asthma. Josepha Nanyanja, the group’s leader said she was mobilising people in her area to grow more paw-paws in order to get the seeds. “But of course the paw-paws will be eaten by the people and their farm animals,” she said. “Apart from the paw-paw seeds that we need for their medicinal value we will be making jam and dried paw-paw chips.”

Mr Buliggwanga Mayanja of Improved Mixed Farming Research exhibited cassava and yam flour. “We want everybody to know,” he explained, “that cassava or yams are not only to be cooked and eaten as flesh tubers but they can be preserved and kept in flour form and even be prepared as porridge or be used to make cakes.” He showed how yams are cut into chips and dried and then pounded into flour. He also had several photographs portraying the need for everyone to be kind to nature by not killing wild animals including dangerous snakes, not burning forests and bushes, and fighting soil degradation.

Community Enterprises Development Organisation (Cedo), a local NGO, and Rakai District Administration organised the day’s festivities. Cedo has been in the district since 2000 working with farmers’ groups. Ms Rosemary Mayiga, the Programme Coordinator said, “Much of our work has been to emphasise that everyone has a right to food, including those who are terminally sick such as Aids victims.

“There are some who used to believe that it was wasteful to give foodstuffs such as eggs and milk to Aids patients.” She and her team visit farmers groups talking to them about nutrition, food preservation, and storage, as well as sanitation and family planning. Food processing and preservation by the farmers will greatly reduce food losses and increase farmers’ incomes as well as food security.