Farming 4 Life Uganda is the first established F4L project. The project was established in 2009 as a result of a partnership agreement made between the two partners ACM (Apostolic Church Mission) in Denmark and VOM (Victory Outreach Ministries) in Uganda. The agreement between the two was based upon a common interest in helping the vulnerable people in society.

In 2012 the partners started up a pilot project sponsored by DMCDD (Danish Mission Council Development Department).
 

Currently, F4L Uganda is running what is called a small-scale project, still sponsored by DMCDD and faithful F4L partners. Farming 4 Life Uganda has its main area of intervention in the Northern part of Uganda around the district of Lira. An area having a history of many years of war and instability.  The war left a society torn apart and many people have suffered from hunger, diseases, and general poverty.

The intervention in Uganda is first and foremost aimed at helping vulnerable people by teaching them agriculture and in general providing them with knowledge before material aid. Through many years of war, a lot of knowledge on agriculture has been lost and people are in need of tools to make their lives sustainable, being able to be independent, and earn to make their own living.

 

F4L started by mobilizing farmers in small groups teaching them good agricultural practices through the Farming Gods Way methods. As the project grew, it was realized that in order to be able to teach people how to manage agriculture well, they would need to be strong enough physically to do it too, and so a greater focus was put upon teaching hygiene and sanitation and health and upon the work with the HIV/AIDS positive people in the society. This work is done in cooperation with different local partners and has proven successful.
The need to teach people how to handle their finances and how to advocate for their rights also started to show as people started to harvest more. People needed to know how to sell their products and how to organize in groups to advocate for themselves and stand up for their rights in society. This was when F4L decided to introduce the VSLA system to their farmers to teach them financial literacy.

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Today F4L Uganda is reaching about 1800 households in Northern Uganda, working hand in hand with several local and international partners. The aim is to empower more vulnerable people in the future through the F4L best practices.

Uganda - brief background and history
The Northern part of Uganda has, through a period of more than 20 years been tormented by civil war and terrorized by rebel groups like The Lords Resistance Army (LRA), led by the rebel leader Joseph Kony.

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Most people in the areas have lived as internally displaced (IDPs), meaning that they have lived in government camps, that were meant to provide them a higher level of security during times of insecurity and fighting. Yet many people still died during the time in the camps.

The camps limited people mainly to rely on relief aid for their survival due to limited possibilities of growing the land and earning money and it has left a large number of the population weaker than before due to the high increase in HIV/AIDS and loss of knowledge and skills on agriculture, organizational practices, etc.

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Many organizations, both NGOs and relief aid organization have been in the Northern part of Uganda working to help the people move on from the time the war finished, but the many years of war and instability in Uganda’s Northern region have led to higher rates of poverty than in other parts of Uganda.

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Today the region is slowly improving again and most of the rural population has returned to their villages. 

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Farming 4 Life started in the aftermath of the war and has been working to help the population towards a positive development ever since.