Project Concept Paper

Rain Water Harvesting and Drip Irrigation Project

Need:

With agriculture contributing to about 23.7 percent of Uganda’s GDP and with food alone
accounting for between 27-45 percent of the average household income, agriculture, is no
doubt the backbone of Uganda’s economy, employing approximately 70 percent of the total
population. The sector also accounts for over 40 percent of Uganda’s exports.

With climate change and unreliability of rainfall patterns, farmers are facing a huge
challenge of sourcing water for their crops in arid and semi-arid areas and during dry
seasons or drought. This long time challenge has become a setback to food production and
food security especially in Sub-Saharan African where most farmers rely on rainfall for
agriculture and yet we let runoff and roof water go to waste, during the rain seasons, and
later cry over food insecurity and chronic poverty resulting from prolonged droughts.

If only we could harness better farming technologies such as irrigation especially drip
irrigation, which not only guarantees increased yields per acre, but also guarantee all year
supply of produce. Irrigation is not only critical for food security but also guarantees all
year income for farmers, thus making agriculture a sustainable economic enterprise.
Uganda generally enjoys 2 rain seasons, that is, March-May and October-December, leaving
much of January-March and June-October idle. Statistics indicate that only 1 percent of the
ordinary farming folk and 5 percent of the commercial farmers use irrigation.

Goals and Objectives:

To improve rural farming methods by planting and harvesting vegetables and other
identified crops all year round, the benefactors/farmers will realize income especially in
the dry seasons because of the supply for vegetables or any other crop will be low and the
demand high. The farming community nutrition will be improved. Also, the general
community health will improve because of the availability of clean water.

Due to the implementation of this project, idle land will be put to use, children of the
benefiting household will concentrate more on school activities with no fear of school dues
not being paid and or having to return home then go fetch water for home use and the
youth will have an avenue to earn extra money when they render help to the beneficiaries
of this project.

Methodology, Operations or Procedures:

Drip irrigation involves supplying water to the soil very close to the plants at very low flow
rates from a plastic pipe fitted with outlets (drip emitters). The basic concept underlying
the drip irrigation method is to maintain a wet bulb of soil in which plant roots suck water.
Only the part of the soil immediately surrounding the plant is wetted.
For each benefactor to this project, a container/reservoir to harvest rain water will be
constructed and a drip irrigation structure will setup. The drip irrigation structure will
include a raised water tank near the garden at every site, one water pump which will be
used to pump water from the reservoir to the raised water near the garden (this pump will
be transported to the farmer who wants to use it then returned to the store after use, so
one pump is needed for the whole project), laying of water pipes in the proposed garden.

The beneficiaries, I assume, have knowledge of making nursery beds for vegetables, so
seeds will be provided. The benefactors will be visited at least once a month to view the
progress and look at the issue of maintaining the irrigation equipment. At harvest time, this
team that is overseeing this project will work hand in hand with the farmers to identify
market by say talking to the administrator of education institutes because boarding
schools are the highest consumers of agricultural products.

Resources and Personnel Available:

Am yet to find partners to work with and funding agencies to finance the project.

Budget:

To be availed when needed.