Enhancing household incomes through sustainable pineapple production practices Luwero District Farmers’ Association (LUDFA) was founded in 1997 as a farmer–owned non governmental organization whose main aim is providing agricultural advisory services to the farming community in Luwero district. It is a registered company limited by guarantee and without share capital, with a secretariat manned by technical staff and governed by a democratically elected Board.  It is also a member organization of Uganda National Farmers Federation (UNFFE), an umbrella organization for farmers’ organizations distributed country wide. It has a total farmer membership of 5,200. 
 
The pineapple crop has become the main income generating enterprise for many farmers in Luwero district. The crop is highly adaptable to many parts of Luwero which are under forest/indigenous tree cover due to high organic matter content. Due to the existing soil fertility, farmers produce pineapples organically. There is an existing access to markets both locally, internationally and regional markets such as Southern Sudan (Juba) and East Africa especially Kenya.
Unfortunately, farmers have not organized themselves for effective marketing and developing value chains yet pineapples have to face high perishability, volume and price uncertainty, and seasonal variability of supply chain. It is proposed therefore that farmers are provided with pineapple suckers for planting, be organized into viable production and marketing groups so as to integrate production and marketing activities, and occupy strategic positions in the value chain development. Value chains of interest to both farmers and stakeholders include transformation of fresh pineapples into products like syrups used in pharmaceuticals (Agona et al., 2002), juice extracts, sweetener jam and wine. LUDFA will need funds from external sources to contribute to improvement in pineapple productivity, raise per capita output levels, and facilitate organized marketing of pineapples as well as processing and value addition strategies. 

This project focuses on the integration of women and youth into the pineapple business through gender mainstreaming and sustainable pineapple production practices be introduced into the pineapple farming system. The overall goal of the project is 10% increase in acreage under pineapple production by men and women famers benefiting at-least 750 households by end of 2012. 

LUDFA has a partnership with SNV, (Netherlands Development Organization) for building its capacity in economic development. Recently, it entered another partnership and acquired a Rural Information System (RIS) collecting household grain production information funded by Uganda Commodity Exchange (UCE) and with support from SNV.

The pineapple crop has become the main income generating enterprise for many farmers in Luwero district. There is an existing access to markets both locally, internationally and regional markets such as Southern Sudan (Juba) and East Africa especially Kenya.

The overall goal of the project is 10% increase in acreage under pineapple production by men and women famers benefiting at-least 750 households by end of 2012. It is important to note that pineapple production cycle is 18 months, hence farmers cannot start to realize increased income earlier than that. However, they can realize increase acreage under pineapples which guarantees them good yields and income once they harvest. It can be projected that by end of 2013, they would have harvested their first crop hence increased their income. Specifically the project will seek to achieve the following objectives:
i. At-least 25 pineapple farmer groups re-mobilised and strengthened for collective marketing.
ii. Initiate Pineapple value addition technologies for the 750 men and women farmers 
iii.Increased access to good agronomical practices to the 750 men and women farmers 
iv.Re-vitalized RIS centre for enhanced information sharing among the men and women farmers 

Objective I: At-least 25 pineapple farmer groups re-mobilised and strengthened for collective marketing
Under this objective, the following activities will be implemented:
• Facilitate meetings with old pineapple farmer groups at parish level
• Work with NAADS and opinion leaders to mobilize new farmer groups in pineapple hotspot areas  
• Support new interested pineapple farmers to get organized and support their formalization  
• Facilitate formed groups to develop marketing plans
• Support the groups to implement the developed plans
• Identify and train VSLA community facilitators
• Support the trained community facilitators to organize and conduct VSLA trainings for the interested pineapple farmer groups
• Provide mentoring and support to the initiated groups to carry out weekly savings
• Organize exchange visit to take part in exposure for simple pineapple processing techniques
• Organize training in cottage pineapple value addition techniques
• Support at least 3 women managed demo sites for cottage pineapple processing. 

Objective II: Initiate Pineapple value addition technologies for 750 farmers
• Organize an exchange visit for interested farmers to take part in exposure for simple pineapple processing techniques in Kayunga district
• Organize training for interested farmers in pineapple value addition techniques
• Support at least 3 women managed demo sites for cottage pineapple processing

Objective III: Increased access to good agronomical practices to 750 farmers
• Organize and undertake tranings for the 25 farmer groups in pineapple GAPs
• Support inter-district exchange visits for learning
• Organize a field day
• Organize special technical trainings
• Provide monitoring support and refresher trainings

Objective IV: Re-vitalized RIS centre for enhanced information sharing among the men and women farmers
• Revive internet subscription for the RIS Centre
• Facilitate information officer at the RIS centre to man the facility 
• Organize re-fresher trainings for extension link farmers in data collection and management
• Organize refresher training for information officer in database management

Project outputs and out comes
o Women and youth farmers groups organized and registered
o Household incomes of women and youth improved
o Pineapple production acreage inventory generated
o Sustainable pineapple productivity improving technologies demonstrated 
o Soil fertility maintained sustainably
o Business planning and records management skills improved
o Pineapple Processing technologies demonstrated and adopted by farmers
o Project activities, achievements and events documented, and disseminated to stakeholders.
The above outputs will lead to outcomes relating to improved welfare of the youth and women and environmental management.

In each of the 5 selected sub-counties (Kikyusa, Luwero, Bamunanika, Kamira and Butuntumula), 5 parishes will be selected from which 1 farmers groups will then be identified, registered and oriented towards the project objectives. This process will yield 25 farmers groups in total, and it will involve group membership renewal as well as recruiting new group members. Each of the 25 groups will averagely be composed of 30 members giving a total of 750 farmers targeted by the project. They will benefit from the project in form of accessing training and improved agricultural practices and value addition of the product (fresh and processed pineapple) and the benefits from these pioneers will subsequently revolve to rest of the farmers. Furthermore each farmer group will also include: youths, women and people with disabilities constituting at least 40% of total membership.

Enhancing household incomes through sustainable pineapple production practices and gender empowerment in Luwero District