PELUM Uganda, in collaboration with Oxfam Novib and CIRAD holds an Inception Workshop for a five-year project at Imperial Golf Course View Hotel, Entebbe.
Having secured a 5year Project, PELUM Uganda in collaboration with Oxfam Novib and CIRAD organized an inception meeting for the ‘Rooted in Diversity: Partnerships for Food Security and Livelihoods’ project from 27th -31st May 2024 in Entebbe. The project will focus on the development and conservation of local seed varieties to provide more nutritious food, through collaboration with farmers in Uganda, Malawi and Niger. The project will prioritize building local knowledge and skills to improve food production and consumption in marginal and variable agroecologies, driven by the potential of agrobiodiversity to ensure food and nutrition security and climate resilience.
The project aims to: (i) amplify the availability and use of locally adapted crops and varieties, including neglected and underutilized food plants, (ii) enhance market access and income opportunities for small-scale food producers, enabling them to capitalize on the commercialization of diverse crops, thus extending these advantages to additional rural communities via markets and exchange networks, (iii) promote best agrobiodiversity management practices through exchange, collaboration and shared learning among researchers and farmers, and (iv) support the voice and collective action of small-scale food producers to advocate for policy changes supporting farmer-managed seed and food systems.
The workshop was attended by plant breeders, farmer organizations, researchers, Government Ministry officials, and academia from Niger, Malawi, Uganda, Netherlands, and France. On the first day of the inception workshop, participants were taken through the overview of the project including content, governance, principles and ways of working as proposed during the proposal submission by the Head of Programs at PELUM Uganda, Mr. Joshua Aijuka. Participants got to know each other’s expertise and experience at organizational level through a session on information sharing by each organization but also as an individual.
