Assessing Urban and Peri-Urban Agriculture in Jinja City, Uganda

Abstract

To achieve the second goal of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which is about ending hunger, it is suggested that towns and cities need to foster and promote urban and peri-urban agriculture (UPA). UPA is also recognized as one of the strategies that can be adopted to address contemporary urban challenges, such as food insecurity, climate change as well as urban poverty. Most intermediate and secondary cities such as Jinja however, lack coherent plans to foster urban and peri-urban agriculture (UPA). The purpose of this study is to assess and explicate the practice and dynamics of urban and peri-urban agriculture (UPA) in Jinja city in view of the city’s recent experience as well as changing land use and development patterns. To achieve the stated objectives of the study, an eclectic research methodology comprising of both quantitative and qualitative approaches was used. The study also used both questionnaires and face-to-face interviews as data collection methods. The questionnaire survey targeted 129 household heads from the Northern and Southern Jinja city divisions. Respondents for the key informants’ face-to-face interviews were selected using purposive sampling while those for the questionnaires were randomly selected. Results show a varied and diverse practice of urban and peri-urban agriculture in Jinja city. The city’s UPA sector is dominated and characterized by poultry farming, crop farming (both food and cash crops), livestock farming (goat/sheep rearing, cattle rearing/zero grazing, rabbit rearing and pig rearing), horticulture/vegetables, fish farming, mushroom growing and agro-forestry (fruit/timber growing). Findings further revealed that, 38.1% of the HHs in Jinja city used their own land to participate agriculture, 21.6% used backyards/house compounds and 21.6% hired land to engage in farming. The rest, 3.1% used borrowed land. In addition, 50.9% of the urban farmers used less than an acre to farm while 0.9% had more than 4 acres. Only 33.3% of the HHs had adequate food for the family needs throughout the year due to factors such as poor harvest and prolonged droughts caused by erratic rainfall. To foster urban and peri-urban agriculture (UPA) in Jinja city, it is suggested that the city authorities adopt strategies to establish a functional demonstration farm where citizens could learn new farming methods, provide cheap credit to urban farmers, strengthen collaboration with the National Animal Genetic Resource Centre (NAGRC) in Njeru town, foster irrigation-related programmes, promote greenhouse farming, promote school gardens in the city, build local capacity for the newly introduced Parish Development Model (PDM) farming groups, carry out public awareness campaigns targeting the youth to embrace urban agriculture, support agro-processing and value addition mechanisms for urban agriculture as well as review the current city zoning laws and building codes to accommodate backyard and roof-top gardening.