Over 350 farmers register to plant bamboo in Amuru

AMURU – A total of 353 farmers in Lakang Sub-county in Amuru district have registered to join commercial bamboo farming.

This follows an initiative by Association of Acholi Environmentalists, a charity group that seeks to address poverty and environmental degradation challenges in Acholi Sub-region.

Michael Okot, the secretary general of the association said with 353 farmers already registered, a total of 11, 602 hectares of bamboo is expected to be planted with support from Uganda Bamboo Association [UBA]. UBA promotes the industrial development of Bamboo in the country.

He said plans are in the advanced stages to enroll the bamboo farmers into the carbon funding programme to financially support the farmers in the short and long term while contributing to restoring the environment in the area.

“Bamboo comes in as a quick alternative to local construction and fuelwood alongside its immense conservation roles,” Okot said.

According to Okot, they are also courting farmers to join commercial coffee and macadamia farming in the district, which he said would be a tool to fight poverty among the farmers.

“We look at agroforestry involving coffee and other fruits and nuts as a major strategy for improving sustainable and profitable farmland productivity Alongside coffee we emphasized improved fruits such as ash avocado, macademia and cashew nuts,” Okot added.

Okot observes that the rate at which the environment is being degraded is alarming and yet the pressure is immense given the traditional method of farming where trees are cut down to clear land for farming.

“It is time that we as environmentalists start complimenting the efforts of government and the technical teams in fighting against environmental degradation by giving good environmental sensitive farming techniques,” he noted.

Jamecy Odoch Mudoch, the Lakang Sub-county chairman said Bamboo trees give alternatives for wood fuel, which is one of the factors that has seen several hectares of land cleared by commercial charcoal dealers.

Odoch said that there is a need for government to support the community members in alternative farming techniques with more emphasis on saving the environment.

“For us in Acholi Sub-region, we don’t have natural environmental features, like forested mountains, large lakes which could absorb and help fight climate change. So it is very important that we begin engaging the locals in environmentally sensitive farming in order to protect mother nature,” Odoch said.

According to experts, bamboos belong to the same family of grasses as important food crops such as rice, wheat, and sugarcane. There are over 1400 known species of the plant growing in different geographical regions around the world and are known to be very versatile.

Managing bamboo plantations

Bamboo plantations can be managed by individual producers without requiring large investments and can be sustainably cultivated to provide vital household income to families in the developing world.

Further, bamboo enterprise is considered to be relevant to many of the UN sustainable development goals [SDGs], particularly in the areas of poverty reduction, climante change adaptation and mitigation, housing and urban development, and the restoration of degraded land among others.

There are numerous known uses of bamboo, including; the provision of fibre for paper making and textiles; it has uses in housing and construction, fishing, basket making, handicrafts, charcoal, and other energy projects, edible bamboo shoots among others.

In the past decade, Uganda has seen a lot of sensitisation about bamboo and its role in enhancing household incomes and environmental health of the country. It because of this perceived potential of bamboo that organizations such as UBA have joined hands with national, multinational, government, and non-goverment agencies and orgainsations to promote its development in Uganda.

The government of Uganda recently passed the Bamboo Policy and has plans of planting 375,000 hectares of bamboo in the next 10 years beginning with the financial year 2019/20.

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