An estimated 40,000kgs of chia seeds lost markets as products tested with residues of agro-chemicals, at the centre of the loss stands Solomon Rackara, a Computer Scientist-turned model farmer whose innovations are driving changes amidst the drastic weather.
Through the project of the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality under UN Women, the small-holder farmers from Gulu district in the Subcounties of Paicho, Unyama, Omel, Palaro, Awach and Bungatira were mobilised between 2019 and 2020 for a bulky chia crop production.
By its title “livelihood enhancement through chia seed production and export for women farmers in Gulu”, the project aimed to improve the women income security, decent work and economic autonomy through production of the organic certified chia seed for export.
The multibillion chia seed production project worth 552 million shillings was implemented by Gulu district local government while ‘SAGE Uganda’ was to export the products to Madagascar and European markets.
The district mapped out chia as a climate smart crop based on its tolerance to moisture stress, pest resistance and its low cost of production and the farmers were to produce 50,000 metric tons per annum with the markets readily secured.
These farmers, 2,000 of them were clustered into 33 Cooperatives within the district, each was to plant 2 acres, meaning, 4,000 acres of chia crop were expected to grow in Gulu district in just five years of the project implementation which commenced in April 2019.
The market lost
Within 9 months of the implementation, the farmers had already produced 40,000 kilograms of chia seeds but lost its market value due to elements of agro-chemicals detected in them.
The market value of chia seed per kilogram according to the project document was at 6,000 shillings and so, with 40,000 kilograms already produced, the farmers would loosely get 240 million shillings after sale which raised hope for a sustained livelihood.
But when the products were tested with agro-chemical, the value market value dropped to just 600 shillings, and the farmers would merely get 24 million instead, they got frustrated while looking at the variance of 216 million shillings going to waste and burnt the seeds.
“When the market came, the products didn’t qualify because they tested with chemicals. The farmers had to put their products together and burn them” Rackara vividly recounted.
At the project, Rackara was recruited to mobilize the farmers and sensitize them on the role of cooperative farming as they were expected to sustain the markets.
“When the market got lost, the company (Sage Uganda) opted to buy a kilogram at 600 shillings; instead of 6,000, that’s when the farmers lost hope and burnt their products” Rackara stated.
He adds” but what failed the markets? The government didn’t do its part, the agricultural extension officers who were supposed to strengthen supervisions on the use of chemicals never did their role. The farmers were left alone; they couldn’t use the chemicals well in production”
From waste to hope
At 35 now, Rackara has started engaging farmers differently, this time, he teaches them how to grow organic food crops using organic manures and pesticides from animal products” I saw it first-hand how the farmers I mobilized for a bulk chia production lost hope”
Amidst the farmers’ frustration, Rackara got inspired to innovate, the unpredictable weather further motivated him as he now turns waste to ‘gold’ and urine into organic farm inputs.
“The farmers started seeing me as their problem because I made them suffer. I was really disappointed…. I could tell them about the ready market; it was really exciting but a very disappointing ending, “He added.
Afterall we all suffered, I have to deal with the mental stress I was going through for providing false hope to these farmers” I went on trial on U-Tube to study the best way of making organic manures and I saw how important rabbits are to the farmers and the environment” He noted.
With a digital presence about the information on rabbits and their immense potential, Rackara opted to rear rabbits as he continued learning, this time from his own demonstration farm.
The farm progressed and expanded to 69 rabbits; most people keep rabbits for their delicious meat, others keep them for furs but Rackara not only keeps them for extra food, he now extracts their urine and turns them into farm inputs, as he sells some, he also uses it in his farms.
Today, he is a supplier of rabbits’ urine within Gulu City and the neighbouring districts of Gulu, Amuru and Nwoya, harvesting between 40 to 60 liters of urine each week.
Within the local markets, Rackara sells each liter at 5,000 shillings, meaning he can milk between 200,000 to 300,000 shillings per week from his rabbits.
“You can hardly smell rabbit’s urine. It’s really irritating to the insects that come to harm crops. You can’t see flies in my farm because of the smell the urine produces” Rackara explained.
As an agri-entrepreneurship innovator, during his three months’ internship study in Berlin, Germany in 2023, Rackara learnt more on food justice and gender justice.
Once returned, he scaled up his poultry farming alongside other enterprises, his 40 by 30 meters’ farm is partitioned to house chicken and rabbits as he diversifies his income.
The brooder (chicken house) in the perimeter fence is built on a wooden structure, inside are 20 light bulbs run by four solar panels each has the capacity to produce 100 watts.
The green energy is converted into the solar light ready to warm up his chicken” I would be using three bags of charcoal to run this farm each three days but how many trees will I be destroying to keep my farm? We need food but agriculture shouldn’t make the environment sick” He observed.
The middle row of his farm is a cage for keeping the rabbits with the gutter built beneath and connected to the tube where the urine flows down the plastic bottle.
On the outside is piggery yet next is the pit he uses to make organic manures from both the chicken droppings and wastes from pigs standing in the outskirts of the City at Laliya Cell.
The zero-waste farming
“The wastes aren’t enough from my farm but I get some from the market, decompose and sell them. Because agriculture is dirty, many people don’t see this money” Rackara noted.
Every time the wastes in his farm get over, Rackara goes to the markets within the city, collects rotten cabbage, tomatoes, bananas and other food wastes, and brings them into his pit. He exposes them to rain and within three weeks, the waste is turned into organic manures.
Every waste is significantly impactful to his farm, here, as he turns rots into treasures, Rackara is also generating 80,000 shillings each thirty days from the organic manures he supplies to the farmers, still, he supplies 500 birds to the hotels within as he sells each at 25,000 shillings.
East of his farm, approximately 8 kilometers at Lunaba Cell is yet another promising poultry farm and a sprouting okra garden, flowering up with few fruits ready for the market.
The 38-year-old social worker-turned urban farmer Favia Lakot has just returned from her garden to check on aphids and whiteflies, the common pests affecting crops in the area.
Lakot is a graduate of Development Studies from Gulu University who abandoned her formal job just after working for 5 years, she now embarks on farming in the peri-urban area.
“My salary was taking me for only 10 days and I would borrow the essential things for the remaining days. When the salary comes, I will be poor as it didn’t come because I have to first pay what I have taken to borrow again” Lakot wistfully recalls as she builds hope on farming.
Like Rackara, Lakot has found relief in poultry farming supplying the hotels with 100 birds each month, each goes as slow as 25,000 shillings with her average monthly income of 2.5 million.
“If I can get about 3 million in one month, I think my decision was right because if I remained in the office, I would get that money after working for five months” Lakot cheerfully stated.
Not a new crisis, like others, Lakot’s first step in farming was fraught with challenges, the temperature rose higher and she harvested nothing from an acre of maize garden a year ago.
Now to supplement her income from poultry farming, in August this year, she planted okra in half an acre of land “The crops have survived. I can get three million from here also” She pointed to the garden.
As most of the urban small-holder farmers are struggling to cope with the climate shocks, Lakot, like few others, are learning from the information available on the internet which teaches the smallholder farmers simple yet the best farming practices.
“This area is infested by pests, crops can’t survive anymore but when I heard about farmers using rabbits’ urine in their farm, I said, let me learn more, I got to the internet” Lakot recalls.
Currently, only the smallholder farmers who own smartphones like Lakot are relying on the available information on the internet to study simple ways to control pests from gardens and to master the changing weather to survive the climate disaster.
Naturally, each two weeks, Lakot spends 5,000 shillings to buy a liter of urine from rabbits to keep away pests from her okra but also to boost the soil nutrients and support her plant growth, as one could easily see, her okra, whom she calls a climate smart crop, was promising.
Beside spraying her crops with urine from rabbits, Lakot also mixes up a spoonful of cement with soda ash and applies it near each plant, “See how crops are dying here but I am still lucky that my gardens are free from pests” She further observed.
Further, Lakot fixes burnt oil in the soil whenever it fails to rain within three weeks, she says, the oily substance helps to retain moistures and covers the soil from direct sunlight, her struggles point at the knowledge gaps which many of her peri-urban farmers are trapped in to survive.
While her other innovations have practically worked, environmental scientists warned that cement contains calcium carbonate and other chemical elements which are harmful to the soil.
“There are other plants that thrive in acidic and natural conditions but cement increases alkaline levels in the soil. This interferes with root ability to absorb water and nutrients” Andrew Akena, an agricultural officer with the Ministry of Agriculture warned.
In the neighbourhood, about midday, as recently as October 15,2025, Catherine Lagum aged 50 weeds her groundnuts planted along the road reserve, next is her stall with vegetables, eggplants and tomatoes waiting for the buyers.
Unlike Lakot and other few small holder farmers who rely on the internet for basic agronomic practices, over the past five years, Lagum hardly harvests crops due to the changing weather.
“You can’t tell when the rain will come back or the sun will shine. Sometimes you listen to the Radio about the weather but when you plant, the crops can’t survive” Lagum vividly recounts.
Every March of the year, whenever the clouds begin to form up, Lagum knows the time has come for planting, although it worked previously but that has far gone as weather changes.
“I would use 600,000 shillings each year to open up land and plant maize crops and simsim yet I couldn’t harvest anything” Lagum wistfully looks back as she struggles to bring food home.
Her struggle underscores an urgent need for improved agricultural extension services where farmers are supported to survive the climate shocks, a journey too far for most smallholder farmers in Northern Uganda which holds potential of 40% of food production in the Country.
“The city doesn’t have an agricultural officer yet we are urban farmers who need extension services, those who can’t read and write are suffering to predict weather” Rackara observed.
He adds” there used to be a strong Cooperatives where farmers can get inputs cheaply and grow together but the Cooperatives are limping between life and death and so the farmers”
But the City Mayor Alfred Okwonga has encouraged the urban farmers to maximize the limited lands within the city to produce food locally for the residents.
“We don’t need to import onion, tomatoes and the rest. We need to produce them locally here, the lands which are within the city can still be utilized well to supply adequate vegetables” Okwonga noted.
He noted that the city will soon turn into an agro-industrialized hub where crops are processed even from within” we want the government to put up processing facilities here so that farmers are able to add value to their crops” Okwonga further explained.
Rabbits’ urine as a low-cost bio-solution to farmers
Soil nutrients’ depletion remains challenging amidst the changing climate although farmers like Lakot and Rackara have turned to urine to boost soil health and weed off pests from their crops.
While the information about utilization of urine remains scanty with the Ministry of Agriculture, its role has primarily been documented within the independent academic studies and research.
The study by Gulu University, Bishop Stuart University, Jomo Kenyatta University and Hame University of Applied Science reveals a strong use of animal manures in Western Uganda.
The data was collected in Mbarara District in April 2023 involving 27 respondents majorly growing cabbage, banana, beans and tomatoes.
The study presents a higher number of young people using animal wastes including rabbit’s urine in farming at 80% with people aged 35 and above standing as low as 37.5%.
While innovations in farming are easily adopted by the young people, only 2 of the respondents had measured their soil health, pointing at the gaps of soil fertility awareness among farmers.
The agro-chemicals are designed to fight pests and pathogens affecting crops but Stephen Olara, an Animal Specialist and a Lecturer at East African Institute of Applied Science says,
“It’s increasingly difficult to safeguard chemicals in food due to misuse in production. The farmers aren’t following the right procedures to use chemicals and because they aren’t doing things right, chemicals are ending up in our food systems”
He argues that, without proper handling of chemicals in farms, Uganda will see rising cases of cancer infections and other respiratory diseases associated with chemical exposures.
“You have animal manures like the urine from the rabbits. It’s an available option which is good for protecting crops, human health and environment” Olara explained.
Amidst high cost of agro-chemicals in the open market as small-holder farmers struggle to access them, the animal wastes like urine, dung and droppings from chicken are crucial to provide the required plant nutrients.
The urine from rabbits is considered highly concentrated with nitrogen, its application into the soil helps to fix back nitrogen into the soil, its stunning-irritating smell acts as repellant to pests such as aphids and whiteflies which normally affects yields.
Generally, plants require nitrogen to support cell growth, gene formation and reproductive functions just like calcium, which offers protection against pests and diseases and potassium, which helps plants to regulate water movement and builds plants resistant to drought.
Once adopted well on farm, the farmer will have cut both the high cost of accessing the manufactured chemicals from the markets as well as eliminating the chemicals in the food value chain, which could potentially harm both humans and nature, as the researchers observed.
The application
For optimum results, Olara explained that, once the urine is extracted, it has to be mixed with water; each liter of urine is mixed with 4 liters of water, which can sparsely spray an acre of land.
“We can save the other insects like bees, which depend on crops to collect nectar from which inorganic fertilisers can’t do, so organic fertilisers like urine are good for the ecology”, He argues.
The legal framework in Uganda governing agrochemicals is primarily the Agricultural Chemicals Control Act, 2007 but Uganda continues battling chemical traces in its food value chain.
Andrew Akena, the Agricultural Officer with the Ministry of Agriculture attached to Amuru and Adjumani Zonal Area, has commended the local farmers for embracing organic farming.
Akena notes that the Ministry of Agriculture is both encouraging and supporting local innovations in agriculture, which he says is environmentally friendly and good for human health.
“We had cases where our products were blocked from entering the international markets because of safety issues but the risk is almost not there with organic fertilisers” Akera stated.
He pointed out that, while synthesised fertilisers are administered on crops after every planting season, organic manures can only be applied once a year and support two alternate seasons.
He adds, “The lifespan of inorganic manures is very short but rabbits’ urine and other animal manures release plant nutrients very slowly into the soil. These are micro and macro nutrients needed”
To Benard Bwambale, a Food Scientist with Consent Uganda, the weak enforcement of agro-chemicals in the Country poses a significant safety risk for human health and the environment.
“We need to build back the indigenous seed banks where the small-holder farmers can’t be exploited by the agro-chemical companies,” Bwambale urged.
He adds, “Because we have all the options for a thriving agroecological farming, we can reduce health risk, but the government needs to support the farmers to adapt to climate-smart farming”
For now, while a handful of smallholder farmers like Lakot and Rackara are surviving climate shocks with innovations in farming, hundreds of others like Lagum are counting losses.
