Backyard Farming to Fight Malnutrition in Uganda

Above: women wearing colorful kitenge at the Kyaka II Settlement in Uganda.

Location of Kyaka II Settlement in Uganda

 Swaths of green stretch out as far as the eye can see, blurring past us in a mixture of eucalyptus trees, East African red stinkwoods, pines, tea, and coffee. This green wonderland is Fort Portal, better yet, the greater landscape of southwestern Uganda. Driving away from Fort Portal, we pass roadside stalls of perfectly stacked mangoes, tomatoes, and cabbages, tempting to any passersby—our CARE International staff packed-car not excluded. Despite being in one of the several “food baskets” of Uganda, malnutrition, stunting, and anemia rates remain high in the Southwestern Region, reporting some of the highest rates of childhood malnutrition and stunting, among nearly half of children under five years old¹².

Nearly a year into working with CARE International in Uganda as a Mickey Leland International Hunger Fellow, I am settled into our monthly routine of traveling the three-hour car ride to Kyaka II Refugee Settlement. Kyaka II, stretching 81.5 square kilometers, is home to over 130,000 refugees, primarily from the Democratic Republic of Congo (at about 80%), South Sudan, Rwanda and Burundi. At 1.6 million refugees, Uganda currently hosts the largest number of refugees in Africa³. With an open-door refugee policy and rising conflict in bordering countries, the refugee influx continues, demonstrated with Kyaka II far surpassing its carrying capacity of 100,000 people. There is evidence of overcrowding as we drive past women and girls carrying bundles of firewood further and further from nearby towns; croppings of mud-built homes pressing closer to the protected wetland; and tarps of cassava, beans, and coffee sardined and sun-drying alongside roads.

Tripling its population in the past six years has put a strain on humans, natural resources, the wetland ecosystem, and water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) services in Kyaka II⁴. Residents who once received a 100-by-100-meter plot of land from the Office of the Prime Minister (OPM) upon arrival, now only receive a 30-by-30-meter plot for their home and agricultural activities. The limited space allotted for each family has increased livestock theft, community violence, and has pushed individuals to seek land outside of the settlement to remain competitive. Small land parcels and overpopulation only contribute to the high acute malnutrition, stunting, anemia, and malaria rates among the settlement—highest in Byabakora and Kakoni zones. The World Food Program, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, and the OPM slashed their required minimum food and cash assistance in July 2023 to 60% for highly vulnerable households and 30% for vulnerable households⁵. This cut, the high dependency on rations, and climate change related drought, have stifled progress towards food and nutrition security. In response to these growing concerns, with funding from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, CARE International in Uganda implemented one of several integrated approaches to nutrition: backyard gardens.

Women working in one of the demo plots, Kyaka II Refugee Settlement.

While I have periodically visited the backyard gardens implemented through the Fill the Nutrition Gap project by CARE International in Uganda and the Joint Effort to Save the Environment (JESE) I am still blown back as we approach a plot filled with the largest cabbages I have ever seen. This plot is run by Inuka Group, one of 40 CARE and JESE supported producer collectives. Hanyubwinfura, the Community-Based Trainer (CBT), welcomes us with a smile, ushering me, the CARE communications team, and the 20 available neighboring CBTs over to take a closer look. The group leans in attentively, scribbling in their notebook filled hands, as he shares best practices for spacing and planting cabbage, onions, and carrots. From this plot we make our way to one of 40 demo backyard gardens. Entering the compound, we pass a cage of rabbits being multiplied for food and are soon encompassed in a flurry of colorful kitenge–brightly colored African fabrics–wrapped tightly around waists, heads, and swaddled babies. Centered among this women-dominant producer group, is the keyhole garden, a tiered system, with a compost bucket in the middle, that makes efficient use of the backyard space. Manure from the rabbits speckle the garden as fertilizer, one of the several agroecological practices CARE promotes. Today, both gardens serve as a farmer-to-farmer learning exchange for knowledge to spread from the CBTs to over 1,100 farmers we work with in Byabakora and Kakoni to improve their own backyard gardens, nutrition status of their household members, and livelihoods.

Rabbits feeding in their hutch in a backyard garden, Kyaka II Refugee Settlement.

Given such a small parcel of land, enhancing productivity, sustainability, and collective action is a necessary means of survival. These backyard gardens are a part of CARE’s Farmer Field and Business School (FFBS) model, an integrated, nutrition-sensitive, climate-resilient, market-based, and gender transformative approach aimed to secure the livelihoods and resiliency of women small-scale producers and their families. This locally-led approach relies on CBTs like Hanyubwinfura, community health workers known as Village Health Teams, trusted partners like JESE, governing bodies like the OPM, district local government, and the Refugee Welfare Council, and producer collectives to work together to build self-sufficiency, social accountability, and participatory monitoring. Key in this collective effort is the meaningful engagement of women small-scale farmers through agroecological skill building around a variety of crops (i.e., cabbage, carrots, “dodo”/Amaranthus, eggplants, onions, spinach, Swiss chard, and tomatoes), nutritional awareness campaigns, livestock rearing, gender dialogues, input access, health initiatives (i.e., mosquito net distribution) and livelihood diversification (i.e., clean cooking stove construction), among others. Men are also selected as Role Model Men to talk openly about psychosocial wellbeing and learn how to be allies to women through shared decision-making, family planning, and household chores. Standing in the backyard, confidence radiates off the kitenge-clad women as they speak proudly of their gardens, successful businesses, and the reduced malnutrition among their families.

We finish the day by visiting our Men in the Kitchen campaign. Entering the final compound, several large pots sit above flames, eight men vigorously chopping vegetables, stirring pasted-dishes, and calling out commands amongst themselves. Unlike the last compound, the only women that remain are me, one JESE staff, the communication coordinator, and a field staff, who exchange satisfied smiles as the men cook, as this is an unlikely sight to see in the settlement and beyond. Prior to this intervention, one Role Model Man, Pascal Bonane, stated, “I didn’t know that I could enter a kitchen and cook for my family because I knew that all home activities and chores were for women until I was chosen as a Role Model Man.” Now men like Pascal are in this very kitchen, and no less than an hour later, men, women and children flood into Kakoni zone to eagerly eat what was prepared. Lunch is a mountain of matoke, groundnut paste, stewed-goat, Irish potatoes, and greens—most of which was sourced from their backyard gardens. This type of plate, boasting a variety of vegetables and a portion of protein is a result of the nutrition campaigns that promote balanced and diversified diets for improved nutrition.

Participants in the “Role Model Men” program preparing a meal.

In CARE’s continued fight for the right to food, water, and nutrition, projects like Fill the Nutrition Gap are designed to sustain producers and communities beyond the lifetime of a project. With exceeded capacity and environmental degradation of Kyaka II, the promotion of climate-and water-smart agriculture practices, food waste reduction, participatory crop breeding, and regenerative agricultural techniques of FFBS are more important than ever. CARE International in Uganda and JESE will need to be intentional in enabling self-reliance and successful program graduation of producers, critically examining limitations of the project-to-date. This will require addressing the heavy reliance of producers on inputs like seeds and fertilizers and improving coordination of market access for input and value chain support. While there is still a long way to go towards fully inclusive and resilient food systems, Fill the Nutrition Gap is one example of what can be done through local partners and enthused farmers, even in the face of displaced lives, limited land and funding, degraded natural resources, and food cuts. Leaving Kyaka II, I take a final look back to watch as women and families walk hand-and-hand towards their respective villages and homes, smiling and reveling in a hard day’s work. This togetherness recalls a phrase my supervisor Godfrey Omony told me only a few months into my fellowship in his local Acholi, “Ribbe aye teko.” There is strength in unity⁶. As we gain distance, their small specks merge into a colorful wave on the horizon.

Traveling along a dirt road in the Kyaka II Refugee Settlement.

1. USAID. Uganda: nutrition profile. (June 2021). Retrieved from: https://www.usaid.gov/sites/default/files/2022-05/tagged_Uganda-Nutrition-Profile.pdf. [↩]
2. Agaba E., Bambona, A., and Kikafunda J.K. (2014). Malnutrition Amidst Plenty: An assessment of factors responsible for persistent high levels of childhood stunting in food secure western Uganda. Retrieved from: https://www.ajfand.net/Volume14/No5/Agaba12570.pdf [↩]
3. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). (2024). Uganda. Retrieved from: https://reporting.unhcr.org/operational/operations/uganda [↩]
4. UNHCR. (2018). Uganda Refugee Response Monitoring Settlement Fact Sheet: Kyaka II – March 2018. Retrieved from: https://data.unhcr.org/ar/documents/details/63276 [↩]
5. UNHCR. (2023). Support to UNHCR and WFP country operations in Uganda. Retrieved from: https://wfp-unhcr-hub.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/Uganda-Hub-support-brief_20230510_clean.pdf [↩]
6. Other translations come to “Together we are strong.” [↩]