The ultimate source of energy for crucial activities like cooking and heating which involves heating process for poultry farmers brooding chicks in rural areas is burning wood and other agricultural products.

Some poultry farmers go to the extent of allowing the chicks to fend for themselves minus heating equipment due to financial constraints.

However this is not the case for some rural women group in Masaka who depend on poultry farming.

Poultry is one of the farming initiatives across the globe including Uganda which is attractive in the context of poverty alleviation.

It has a high reproduction rate per unit time and requires a very low capital investment and space, hence it can even be kept by families who don’t own land.

However there may arise a challenge of how to brood the chicken to grow to maturity given the high cost of energy.

As such rural women engaged in poultry keeping across the country have devised means of adopting the technology of processing briquettes out of farm waste to brood their chicks.

This was revealed by rural women who gathered at the Uganda National Farmers Federation (UNFFE) headquarters to celebrate the 2025 women’s day.

The activity organized by the Young Farmers Federation of Uganda (UNYFA) involved young rural women farmers from Lango sub region and the greater Masaka  who shared experience in agriculture value chain initiatives involving different agriculture commodities.

The Young Famers Federation of Uganda during the occasion also launched the women in agriculture awareness campaign aimed at increasing women participation in agriculture across Uganda.

Background

This year’s women’s day was celebrated under the theme “Accelerate Action” and the board members of UNYFA chose to accelerate action among rural women farmers including the youthful women.

The Gender focal person in UNYFA Ms Rehema Nasejje explained that it important to address the challenges rural women engaged in agriculture are facing and must be addressed.

Giving the statistics, she notes that about 20% of women are involved in agribusiness and out of 0ver 70% people engaged in agriculture 17% are women meaning there must be more initiatives to accelerate action of women farmers since they are the ones who put food on the table in their homes.

However seeds of Gold picked interest in the women exhibiting their briquettes processed out of farm waste for brooding chicks

According to available statistics from Ministry of Agriculture indicates that Poultry meat consumption in 2024 is estimated to have reached 69,500 metric tons up from 69,000 metric tons in 2021, with the industry seeing an average annual growth rate of 1.2%.

This is a result of rural farmers adopting brooding technology of using briquettes as brooding mechanisms of young chicks be it local indigenous chicks or exotic types.

Brooding chicks refers to the period immediately after hatching where young chicks, unable to regulate their body temperature, are provided with supplemental heat and care to ensure their survival and growth until they can maintain their own body temperature.

Seeds of Gold interacts with rural woman farmer from Masaka and below is what she had to say.

Using Briquettes to brood chicks

Ms Christine Namusoke is a farmer hailing from Masaka and she belongs to Twekolere women’s group lwabibikere which was began 7 years ago.

The group comprises of 30 members with a major aim of saving their income reaped from farming.

Most of the group members are rearing poultry mainly broilers and layers as well as keeping piggery.

According to Namusoke previously the group members were using charcoal placed in cooking stove to brood chicks but this technology has a challenge.

It consumes a lot of charcoal and sometimes chicks will end up flying towards the fire thereby getting burnt.

However it is until late last year that the group began adopting the technology of using briquettes which is processed by members for their personal use.

This after UNYFA advanced the group Shs1.2 million which different women groups apply for and after obtaining it, they began processing the briquettes.

On her part she is rearing over 50 broiler chicken and 10 pigs. Some members have over 100 chicken

What the members do is collect farm waste including coffee husks, banana leaves, and vegetable waste among others which is crushed and fermented. It is later mixed with cassava flour and a little amount of clay and left to sun dry.

The briquettes are in different sizes, there are the small ball rolls where 5-6 rolls can be placed in cook stove and it will last the entire night.

There is the one and half kg which is placed in a specialized cook stove and this can last the entire night.

The group intends to intensify the initiative as an income earning for the group by processing the briquettes on large scale for commercialisation.

Other initiatives

Ms Odirah Nasaba from the Ministry of Gender Labour and Social development is heading the project of Generating Growth Opportunities and Productivity for Women Enterprises (GROW) and she says women of all calibre can access a fund from the ministry as long as they have something tangible on ground.

This is a World Bank-funded initiative, being implemented by the Ministry of Gender, Labour and Social Development in collaboration with the Private Sector Foundation Uganda to increase access to entrepreneurial services for women entrepreneurs. 

In far as women engaged in farming can apply for a specific amount of fund as a group or individually.

This can to facilitate women groups who have silos on ground to store their farm produce. They money can be used to set up more farming equipment’s.

Women groups trading in coffee may also apply for fund to purchase value addition equipment.

The advert is already running and once the individual or group of women acquire the funds, its payable of agreed terms with 10% per year. However after boosting the agribusiness, in 6 months’ time women qualify to apply for 6% grant of the advanced fund.

Women in agriculture campaign

The UNYFA communications manager Oscar Kakande explained that to many youths agriculture is not an attractive venture but through this campaign inspirational messages will be spread out across the organization’s digital platforms

This will also include the main stream media celebrating role model women in agribusiness, farming and value addition among others.

Internally at the Young Farmers Federation the women participation in most of the activities and programs is low. Making the male counterparts to take a higher percentage.

With this campaign, the federation through the communication department will address this challenge by imploring the public to stand firmly, solidarity with all the women to fight restrictive gender norms which affect women participation in agriculture and to erase the narrative that agriculture is a poor man’s job, dirty work etc.

The strategy is to reach out to 18,036 followers who will be receivers of the messages which will involve success story coverages through infographics, videos and news features among others.

Other targeted audience is 10,000 Facebook followers, 6,936 Twitter) followers, 300 Instagram, 400 LinkedIn, and 200 WhatsApp group which UNYFA intends to set up

Who is this campaign targeting?

The campaign is basically targeting young rural women aged 18-35 and Agricultural extension officers who deal directly with rural women engaged in agriculture.

We therefore call upon you to accelerate action towards women empowerment.

The team therefore the targeted women famers to actively participate in the campaign by following the messages which include among others best farming practices to obtain bumper harvest as well as best practices to be followed in agribusiness value chain to earn better income.