The smallholder farmers are the majority of the farming force in Uganda (estimated at 80 percent), and like large scale farmers who mainly pursue plantation agriculture mainly in cash crops and livestock, they need also need irrigation.

Large scale farmers and small holder farmers both face barriers to adopting irrigation and other agricultural technologies, but small holder farmers face more barriers and different kinds of barriers.

A common mistake is to only think about the act of buying or acquiring technology. In fact, acquisition is only one elelement within a wider uptake process that includes four key stages: Technology development, dissemination, adoption, and use. Each stage presents opportunities to include small holder farmers and overcome constraints

Innovative irrigation technology does:

• Generates income through higher value produce, higher yields, and an extended growing season.
• Grows more nutritious crops.
• Withstands weather variability and climate stresses.
• Saves water supply for multiple purposes in addition to crops (drinking, cleaning, livestock, etc).
• Improves family health and reduce small holder farmers’s burden of caring for the family.
• Reduces small holder farmers’s own time and energy burden of collecting and/or applying water.
• Reduces the gap in irrigation technology adoption.

We investigate the following social inclusion issues at each phase:

[1] Design:

Irrigation technology is rarely designed with or for small holder farmers. This matters because small holder farmers often prefer different irrigation technologies than large scale farmers and will not adopt technology that does not meet their needs. Making irrigation work for small holder farmers means understanding where, when, for what purposes, and at what scale small holder farmers clients want to use irrigation and water technologies in the given context. Issues like the location or portability of the technology, suitability, social acceptability of use, and upfront and operational costs often matter to small holder farmers.

[2] Dissemination

Even if the technology meets small holder farmers’ needs, small holder farmers won’t adopt it if they don’t know about it. Disseminating information about new technology requires specific strategies to reach small holder farmers. Traditional channels, such as farmer field days and trainings or working through extension agents, producer groups, or equipment dealers, may leave small holder farmers out. Rather, we need to meet small holder farmers where they are and provide information through networks that small holder farmers trust, such as small holder farmers community leaders, savings groups, frontline health workers, or small holder farmers lead farmers and producer groups

[3] Adoption

Once small holder farmers learn about a technology, in most cases, they need to find a way to purchase it. Access to credit remains a challenge for small holder farmers. In addition, irrigators need access to irrigable land, water, labor, and markets to buy inputs and sell irrigated produce. Small holder farmers are disadvantaged in each of these areas.

[4] Use

Finally, after irrigation technology is adopted, large scale farmers and small holder farmers, may experience different impacts, such as workload, power to decide on whose plots of land the technology is used, and control over the income generated. There are also risks to small holder farmers who irrigate. More powerful actors in the family or outside can appropriate land after they make investments in irrigation, so efforts are needed to secure small holder farmers’ land and water tenure to ensure benefits after the technology is adopted.

[5] Taking action

Earthcare Innovations Limited (EIL) is making small-scale irrigation work for small holder farmers by designing the Water Saving Irrigation System (WSIS) that empowers grass roots farmers and small holder farmers to become climate change resilient. Our process of technology adoption requires coordination between actors to ensure the design of the technology meets small holder farmers’ needs, that information about the technology reaches small holder farmers, that small holder farmers are able to adopt the technology, and that small holder farmers are able to benefit securely from the technology.

Rural women travel long distances for fuel, food, and fodder, this work can pose great hardship, especially in arid and semiarid regions where trees and crops are scarce. Irrigation is an obvious solution, but providing enough water to nurture crops and trees on dry, sandy soils is difficult, our solution: the Water Saving Irrigation System(WSIS), can help.

Growing crops and trees is difficult in arid and semi-arid regions, especially in high percolation sandy soils. Our solution, the WSIS can reduce the frequency of waterings and reduce the total amount of water needed, while ensuring a constant regulated supply of moisture to crops and young trees.

Water, nutrition, health, and women’s empowerment are closely interlinked. The WSIS can make water access reliable year-round, generating a range of benefits. Reliable water access provides greater availability and stability of food supplies during the dry season, enables crop diversification, including micronutrient-rich vegetables and fruits, and generates income during the lean season. Access to irrigation can also help improve communities’ water supply, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) and support communities’ health status. Finally, reliable water access is also an important entry point for women’s empowerment. Women tend to invest more than men in household nutrition, education, and health, and therefore, enhancing women’s access to and control over irrigation can have a positive multiplier effect on reducing undernutrition.

Women are largely responsible for food preparation, childcare and water-collection chores, so improved access to irrigation water can reduce women’s work burden. The time saved as a result of having better access to water can allow women to participate more actively in income-generating, caregiving, and social activities. However, access to irrigation is not without risks: in some cases, irrigation may increase women’s agricultural workload given an extended growing season, or risk other actors dispossessing women of their irrigated plots, since irrigation can raise land value. To ensure irrigation interventions do no harm, adequate protections for women’s work burden and for women’s control over irrigation and land are key.

However, women face particular barriers in accessing irrigation. Relative to men, women often have limited access to land, water, labor, capital, technology, information, and other assets, and therefore, they are less likely to access or benefit from irrigation interventions. Men, in contrast, generally have better access to irrigation technologies and own most irrigation assets. As a result, the income generated from irrigated agriculture is often controlled by men and spent according to their preferences. To promote gender parity, irrigation interventions must proactively promote women’s inclusion and participation, especially supporting women to overcome asset-based constraints. When women mobilize inputs themselves and are included in irrigation and water management institutions, they are more likely to benefit from irrigation interventions.

Improving home garden production through irrigation can be an important entry point for women’s empowerment because women frequently control home garden production. The micronutrient-dense fruits and vegetables grown in these plots are usually kept for home consumption or sold in local markets and support household and community food security. In contrast, cash crops are usually men’s domain. Improving women’s involvement in cash crop production has potential to enhance household nutrition and welfare if women have a say in the use of income from the sale of cash crops.

The desert district Karamoja recieves sparse rainfall averaging around 500mm (19inches) per year. The region’s evapotranspiration is generally high. Temperatures are generally high throughout the year reaching 32.5 °C (90.5F) for maximum and heat waves have become longer in the last years.

In this harsh climate which could become even more extreme as the planet warms, villageres will have no access to canal water , ruling our crop cultivation in the past. But our WSIS makes agriculture possible hence ushering in a new era for local farmers.

The WSIS is a sub surface micro irrigaiotn, it is an efficient method, dleivering water directly to plant roots rather than spreading it more widely across fields. A similar ancient technique has been used in in arid and sem arid regions of china,inida, iran, mexico and brazil to grow a wide rage of plants

The WSIS can be used to grow a wide range of plants including cucumber,okra, eggpolant, beans, toamates, melons among many others. The rate of water seepage from our WSIS depends on the type of plant, soil and climate condition hence our system is self regulating to control over or under irrigation and water losses are negligable.

For small holder farmes, the WSIS costs around 1,500,000 Ugx (nearly $270) per acre _about 70% cheaper than drip and sprinkoler irrigiaotn. The yields per acre is around 60% higher than with furrow and flood irrigation which many farmers continue to use .

Our WSIS is easily available in Uganda and can be easily exported or shipped across various countries in Africa and the world atlarge.

Karamoja faces a majour challenge in adapting to its fast depleting water resources. They are coming under increased pressure due to uncertain rainfall, a rising population, outdated and ineficiet irrigation systems and reliance on water intesive crop varieities.

Karamoja is classifeid as a water stressed distitcy , with less than 1000cubic meteres per capita water availble, down from the 5500 cubic meters per capita in the 1950s

Achiecing maximum crop productivity from each drop of water is regarded as essential for th sustainability of the agricultural sector and food security .But achienving this goal will be difficult unless farmers switch to new methods such as the WSIS.

There's a reason school and classroom gardens have been growing in popularity–gardening works exceptionally well as a comprehensive hands-on learning tool, especially for STEM-related topics. Earthcare innovations Limited (EIL) brings educational learning gardens into low-income elementary schools. Schools with installed gardens see an average increase of 12-15% in students' standardized test pass rates, with science often having the largest gains.

Gardening is also a learning tool that is appropriate for children or adults of any age. Early childhood providers and preschool programs can use gardens to provide multisensory learning experiences and to give children a strong foundation in basic STEM concepts. Elementary educators can then utilize gardens to expand on children's previous knowledge and to reinforce what children are learning in class. Gardening can also expose children to science and other STEM disciplines at an earlier age, which will increase the likelihood of them studying or working in a STEM-related field later in life.

Here are just a few of the ways we use gardening to support STEM-based learning in the classroom:

• Science: Older children can study plants and insects, learn nutrition skills, observe the effects of weather, and learn about more advanced science topics. Young children can feel the textures of different plant leaves, help water plants, and learn a variety of basic science concepts.
• Technology: Weather and soil tools often used in gardens are a great way to discuss technology with older kids. You can also discuss machines and technology used in larger gardens or in farming. For younger kids, its best to remember that technology is really anything made by humans. Garden tools and other basic items are great conversation starters for how technology is used in gardens.
• Engineering: Building and planting a garden is great engineering and design practice. This is why it's important for you to involve kids as early as the planning process. Have them decide where the garden would best be located, but make sure they consider the amount of sunlight, proper drainage, and other important factors that affect how gardens grow.
• Mathematics: Gardening is a great way to promote a variety of math concepts for preschool and elementary students. Counting, size, shape, proportion, fractions, multiplication, etc. are all math topics that children can learn while gardening. Young children can count how many tomatoes are on a vine, for example, and older kids can problem solve to figure out how much they would have to sell 20 tomatoes for to make a profit.

We at EIL advocate for STEM, hence gardening also provides a variety of creative art opportunities. Children can draw or paint pictures of the plants, flowers, and insects they see in the garden, or they can make their own flower bouquet as a creative project.

Gardening is a great learning activity for teaching STEM. Just be sure to make gardening intentional and educational by planning educational opportunities and objectives for kids. Contact us today for your plants and gardening materials for gardening tools and kits you can utilize in your school or classroom garden.