KAMPALA, September 11, 2026 — Eastern and Southern Africa Small Scale Farmers Forum [ESAFF] Uganda has launched training for the sixth cohort of journalists and communicators, aimed at equipping them with skills to report extensively and critically on agroecology, food systems and the lives of small-scale farmers.
The sixth cohort comprises 13 journalists, including this reporter, who is based in the Acholi Sub-region.
Hakim Baliraine, the National Chairperson of ESAFF Uganda, while speaking to participants during an introductory workshop held recently at Esella Country Hotel in Kampala, emphasised the critical role journalists play in protecting public health and safety by providing communities with accurate information about the food they consume and how it is produced.
“Consumers deserve to know where their food comes from and how it is produced. They should be able to distinguish agroecological produce from conventional products, giving consumers confidence in the safety of what they buy,” he said.
Baliraine said journalists have a key role to play in telling these stories and helping people understand the value of safe food.
He noted the lack of understanding of agroecology among some government extension workers as one of the challenges facing the practice.
“Extension workers, especially those from government, only understand conventional farming systems. They advise farmers to use synthetic inputs and fertilisers. When you tell them about agroecology, they say it is a backward way of farming. So, as journalists, you have a very big role to play,” Baliraine said.
He also noted that farmers are making losses by selling their farm produce in raw form.
“Most small-scale farmers are selling raw materials. They get little money. They usually have no storage, and their products are highly perishable, so they make losses and go back to the same cycle of lack,” he said.
He added: “At ESAFF, we want farmers to have sufficient food. They should have enough to eat and sell the surplus.”
Nancy Mugimba, the ESAFF Uganda National Coordinator, urged journalists and communicators to look beyond what is on people’s plates and investigate the food systems behind it.
“We had our way of producing food. People call it traditional, but it started vanishing, and we started seeing complexities in communities. We are counting on you to report on the system that keeps us healthy. We should be interested in what is happening and where our food comes from,” she said.
Irene Nakijoba, a small-scale farmer under ESAFF from Mukono District, said she practises agroecology, a system she learnt from her parents and grandparents.
The training comes amid growing public concerns about chemical-laden food, particularly vegetables and cereals, being sold in markets across the country.
Journalists undergoing the training said they would utilise the knowledge gained to promote agroecology in rural areas, where the majority of farmers live.
“Of course, I will use the knowledge obtained from this training on agroecology to encourage rural farmers to embrace the practice, which saves the environment because it discourages the use of chemicals,” one journalist from northern Uganda said.
The initiative builds on previous cohorts trained by ESAFF Uganda, whose graduates have gone on to increase attention to issues ranging from farmer-managed seed systems and pesticide use to food safety, land rights, climate change and sustainable agriculture.
ESAFF, which currently operates in 54 districts in Uganda, has reached 763,000 small-scale farmers, according to Ronald Bagaga, the organisation’s Programmes Manager.
Agroecology emphasises farming systems that work with nature to produce healthy food, based on 13 key principles.
These include fairness, participation, biodiversity, soil health, social values and diets, co-creation and sharing of knowledge, input reduction and economic diversification.
Others are synergy, land and natural resource governance, connectivity, animal health and recycling.
According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization [FAO]’s 2026 State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World report, more than 300 million people in Africa are suffering from hunger.
The report says three out of every five people in Africa are hungry because the available food is unaffordable.
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