This project helps underserved Ugandan farmers combat the deleterious effects of climate change and break the cycle of poverty in which they live. Your support will provide these farmers access to affordable foot-powered pumps and/or drip irrigation systems -- enabling them to achieve year-round food security, double or triple their incomes, and build resilience to increasingly unpredictable rainfall patterns.
Across Uganda, 70% of the population subsist off of rainfed agriculture and live on average household earnings of $2 a day or less. Residing in a country that is rated the 12th most vulnerable to climate change, the plight of these farming families has become ever more precarious with rainfall patterns increasingly unpredictable and dry seasons persisting longer and longer. The result is worsening seasonal hunger, chronic income instability and severe economic hardship.
Lifeline's irrigation initiative helps smallholder farmers to address this problem. We offer farmers who live near an open-water source an affordable foot-powered pump and/or drip irrigation lines under a lease-to-own arrangement and train them on their usage and maintenance. Able to water their crops year-round, farmers can triple their incomes, strengthen their resilience to climate shocks, and build more stable futures for themselves and their families.
"Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day, give him a net, teach him how to use it, and you feed him for a lifetime". This initiative honors that age-old adage, with one important caveat. Farmers are not given the "net"; they pay for it - albeit over time. In other words, this is a market-based initiative that can ultimately pay for itself. As such, it can be replicated and scaled to reach thousands of smallholder farmers across Uganda.
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