Gis

The wide application of spatial technologies in disciplines ranging from natural resource management, environmental impact assessment, physical land use planning, modelling of spatial processes, epidemiology, business network analysis to socio – economic service delivery. The relevance of spatial technologies of which Geographical Information System (GIS) is one, to many different disciplines and professionals stems from the fact that all activities, human or natural, tack place across geographical space and over time. Consequently, the spatial information generated using spatial technologies is relevant for decisions made by a variety of decision and policy makers in government, NGOs e.g. Save the children in Uganda and JOBS and many corporate firms.

In the GIS training we were expected to come up with a map of Nakasongola District showing its boundaries, water bodies (rivers and lakes), roads (main road and feeder roads), locate all boreholes, trading centres which were to help in the marketing of the products, Agricultural fields which were taken as polygons.

CIT students at work trying to record the coordinates for some point

Bodaboda ride to the farms



Start of the journey to the farms to take the coordinate.

News from Tumwebaze marketing group(Kigingo village)

The group is also located in Lwampanga subcounty, in Kisalizi parish in Kigingo village.

The group has a chairperson Margaret Ssali and it comprises 60 members.

The group has two sources of water; some people get water from wells and others from the Lake Kyoga. The group is also located near a mill.

A number of crops are grown including maize, beans, groundnuts, cassava, sweet potatoes, millet, nakati, tomatoes. The crops grown in excess include cassava, maize, potatoes, millet, ground nuts and tomatoes.

Maize, ground nuts cassava, millet and sweet potatoes are minimally processed through sun drying.

The maize that is milled is used for food only.

The biggest challenge for this group is the marketing of their produce and the low pricess offered for their produce.

A sack of dried cassava can be as low as 700/=. A kilo gram of maize can be as low as 250/=. The prices of most of the produce vary with availability which in turn varies as the seasons vary.

The possible products from the available raw materials and resources include; peanut, biscuits, cookies, bread, porridge flour, sweet potato crisps, tomato jam, tomato juice.

News from Mukigenderere Zengebe Marketing Group( zengebe village)

The marketing group has a chairperson Mr. Serubombwe Musa; and it is located in Lwampanga sub county, Zengebe parish and Zengebe village. The group comprises 30 members.

The sources of water in the area are open wells and the Lake Kyoga. However the water from the wells is dirty and unreliable so the main source of water is Lake Kyoga.

The group grows a number of crops some of which are maize, cassava, sweet potato, millet, groundnuts however only maize, cassava and groundnuts are grown in excess. Seasonally, watermelon, carrots, tomatoes, eggplants and cabbage may be in plenty. Also the fact that the people are near a lake means there is a continuous supply of fish.

The marketing group is also located near a mill however the owner of the mill only comes once in a while.

The people carry out minimal processing of the surplus produce including sun drying of potatoes (kasedde), cassava, maize as well as ground nuts.

The group produces flours from maize and cassava. The mill used however produces a crude product.

When asked for their expectations, members had a number of ideas but generally wanted to learn new methods of production of food.

The biggest challenge that the group faces is the marketing of the produce. A basin of tomatoes can go for 5000/=, a polythene bag of carrots for 2000/= only, a kilogram of kasedde for 2000/= and some times as low as 1000/=. Ground nuts, maize and cassava have no market at all. People from town may purchase these but at very low prices.

From the available raw materials and resources, we thought that some of the possible products could be; peanut, bread, doughnuts, cookies, tomato jam, sweet potato crisps, water melon juice, water melon wine, fish balls, smoked fish, porridge flour (maize, mukene, millet)