Agriculture Cluster Development Project

Introduction  Mer ber Cooperative society started as a VSLA in 2008 with 38 members. According to Mr Ogey Paul the Manager, in 2011 the VSAL was registered as a cooperative owned by members. In 2014 it was able to attract financing from USAIF to put up the rice machine which has been serving members of the community. The Cooperative now has over 500 members with 120 members registered in the e-Voucher. More Youth have also been attracted to the cooperative. Members are engaged in cassava production with over 200 acres of crop. Paul says as a cooperative they need much more farm land. This is to match the capacity of the cassava processing machine which they acquired from the ACDP matching grant.  Mer-ber youth members prepare cassava for drying ACDP Matching grant  In 2020, the Cooperative acquired a matching grant of Shs 406,871,000 to construct a store, a solar drier and buy a cassava processing machine. This was to help save the farmer’s time since the machine would be able t

  Introduction Formed in 2014, Binagoro women’s group   is located in   Medennga village, Midigo sub county.   This 30 member group was among the first three groups in Yumbe district to benefit from the ACDP first cohort matching grant. Overall the group benefited from a matching grant of   shs 189,000,000.   Members   contributed   shs.   62,370,000   while government through ACDP contributed   shs 126,630,000. Benefits   They started construction of their storage facility in March 2020. One year later they had completed construction, and in April 2021, they were able to purchase a cassava milling machine at 32 million shillings.  Binagoro Women's group grinding mill Before construction of the store, they were keeping their cassava in their houses and would have to walk up to Madigo subcounty.   Grace Chandiru, a group member said the grant had helped in many ways. For example, they are able to mill cassava at shs 100 per kilo for community members, maize at shs 200 and sorg

  Introduction Aliamu Cupiria Timbakua Seed Development Association(ACTs) was formed in 1999 as a youth group under NARO as a seed multiplier. It is composed of five Regional Producer Organizations constituting of over 100 members.   The group plants foundation  cassava, beans, rice and simsim seeds. Some of the seeds have been sold to MAAIF and the group started selling to Operation Wealth Creation this year. Other partners supporting ACTs are American Refugee Committee and Dan church Aid. ACTs joined ACDP in June 2018 and the leaders have been taken for  matching grants trainings to Arua. They also also participated at the Namboole Expo in Kampala where they signed an agreement for the Matching grants. Benefits ACTs got a total grant of UGX 386,567,164   with the group co-funding of UGX 127,567,164 . With this grant the group was able to   buy and install a cassava processing machine by January 2019. According to   John Asia, the chairperson of the group, when a person comes wi

Jamal Muhammad is the chairperson for the 30 member association composed of   21female and nine males, the group was formed in 2015.   This group joined ACDP in November, 2019, enrolled in the e-Voucher program and   they grow cassava. They have also partnered with Dan- church Aid and are supported to grow sunflower.   Last season, they produced 4.5 tonnes of sunflowers and sold to Mukwano group of companies. Benefits Group member crush cassava into smaller pieces for drying Under the e-Subsidy program, each member received eight bags of cassava cuttings for one acre and have been able to supply the NAADs program with 480 bags. Before   joining ACDP only two members supplied   less than 200 bags locally. Members have also been able to earn Shs 900,000 from cassava cuttings after using Shs 148,000 for the subsided inputs. The benefit is both from the cassava cutting as well as harvest of tubers which is used for food but also sold. Change at home: Food issues at home is now a