June 3-10, 2023 (Napak and Moroto, Uganda): IGAD Centre for Pastoral Areas and Livestock Development (ICPALD) in partnership with Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Makerere University, University of Nairobi, and World Agroforestry, organized a follow up Stakeholders Engagement Field Visit on the Drylands Transform (DT) Research Project with the aim of addressing complex challenges in the East African drylands including: climate change, food insecurity, land and ecosystem degradation, and weak institutions in Napak and Moroto districts of Uganda.

In East Africa, drylands dominate large areas where the major land use is extensive livestock production characterized by seasonal herd mobility tracking for pasture and water. 90% of the population are pastoralists in these areas which host 160.28 million cattle (43% of cattle in Africa), 308.78 million goats & sheep (34% of goats & sheep) in Africa), 19.02 million camels (56% of camels in Africa). Livestock sector contributes 10% – 50 % of the individual IGAD countries’ agricultural GDP.

During the DT sites visits in Napak and Moroto districts, Prof. Denis Mpairwe highlighted that: “currently, the area is experiencing a severe drought period which has significantly affected the pastures and crops that were planted in April 2023 immediately after receiving the early season rain showers. This resulted in very poor pasture and crop establishment and growth”.

“Since 2022, the communities living in the pastoral areas of Rupa Sub-county, were faced with insecurity which forced them to abandon their homesteads and shift to safer areas close to Moroto town.”

The team visited Dryland Transform Livestock Cafés (knowledge sharing hubs) with the objective of capturing the ongoing research work in the Karamoja cluster where scientists co-develop sustainable rangeland restoration and management options with the local communities.

At the livestock cafés, three major intervention options were conducted which included:

• Kitchen gardens for integration of crop farming into livestock keeping for improved food security and nutrition at household level.

• Technologies for rehabilitating degraded rangelands. For Karamoja, the interventions involved the use of animal manure and oversowing existing pastures with selected grass & legume forage seeds. This was implemented in a community participation experimental plot involving demonstration of 7 rangeland rehabilitation interventions treatments, each replicated 4 times including oversowing with: grass seeds only (T1), pasture legumes only (T2), a mixture of grasses & legumes (T3), grass seeds & manure application (T4), a mixture of grasses + legumes & manure application (T5), & manure application only (T6) and a control of no intervention (T7).

• Fodder crop production and forage conservation, specifically hay making, aimed at teaching pastoralists the technology for conserving excess pasture which grows during the rainy season for improved livestock feed availability during the dry seasons. In dry seasons, they face acute feed shortage exacerbated by lack of water for their animals which forces them to migrate.

The expected output was to build upon last year’s project story and capture the development of ongoing livestock cafes research work in both the kitchen gardens and degraded rangeland rehabilitation experimental plot sites. This information will be disseminated on IGAD digital platforms.

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Additional Resources

1. Watch 2023 video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R1NM2a-nFTo
2. Watch 2022 video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tkke7FL1cz0
3. DT project summary: https://icpald.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/DT.pdf