56 cows distributed in Butaleja district

[OrganicABC]

56 cows distributed in Butaleja district
Wednesday, 23rd December, 2009 E-mail article Print article

By Titus Kakembo

Send A Cow Uganda, a project financed by Heifer Netherlands, distributed 56 cows in Butaleja district in eastern Uganda.

Presiding over the occasion, the resident district commissioner, Edward Wabudi, praised the project for helping vulnerable people.

“Fighting poverty and malnutrition in a sustainable manner through the development of animal production, organic farming and local self sustaining groups is the way forward,” he said.

Wabudi advised the beneficiaries to let their children take some of the milk to boost their health.

He urged the residents to develop a saving culture and book-keeping practices if they are to manage their businesses well.

The beneficiaries comprised widows, orphans and HIV-positive people.
“We have been waiting for two years for the cows,” said Juliet Malime, a beneficiary in Kachonga village.

“Onlookers laughed when we cut down Kapyanga hedges (in which tsetse flies multiply) and cemented the pens for the cows while we slept in mud floored houses.”

Several applicants opened up acres of land, planted pasture for the animals and undertook basic accountancy and veterinary courses before the animals arrived, Malime added.

“They became a laughing stock in the market place and at the well. But they are now role models in the village,” said Jackson Were, the extension worker.

Butaleja’s main food crops, bananas and cassava, were affected by diseases like banana wilt and cassava mosaic recently. The high population density has also led to land fragmentation.

These have resulted into diminishing crop yields and reduced incomes.

The average household annual income is $100 (about 190,000), which is less than a dollar a day.