Judith Bakirya, Busaino Herbs & Fruits, Busoga (Uganda)
Women in agriculture are drivers of innovation in our industry. They think out of the box, are adaptable to challenges and are often the first to diversify or innovate on the farm. The podium at the Women in Ag Awards 2024 ceremony, celebrating the achievements of the women in our industry, was proof of that. The third place in the “Agriculture” category was for Ugandan farmer Judith Bakirya, who could not make the trip to Hannover but definitely deserves to have her story told in our magazine.
Judith Bakirya calls herself a social agri-preneur. She is the managing director of Busaino Herbs & Fruits – BusHFruit for short – in the Eastern African country of Uganda. A certified herbalist, Judith holds a master’s degree in health & development from Birmingham University in the UK. Her work at BusHFruit, an agroecology farm with a social mission, earned her multiple awards, including the global BBC’s “100 women” in 2019, the Ugandan national award for “Best Farmer” in 2015 and the “Cultural Heritage” award in 2023 before her recent recognition at the Women in Ag Awards.
“BusHFruit grows avocados, jackfruit, trees and forest herbs”, Judith explains. “We call it the ‘Food Forest Garden Model’. In my role as a managing director, I work with small garden owners, the neighbours to our farm, who are in-growers of nuts, beans, soya and vegetables in the fruit farm and out-growers of avocado and jackfruit. We also host agroecology learning safaris on the farm,” Judith says.
Education for girls
Growing up on the family farm, Judith helped out from a young age, rising early to dig vegetables for meals, fetching water from the village wells and collecting firewood from the forest. Unlike many girls from her district, however, Judith and her sisters were sent to school along with the boys. A gift in an area where girls don’t always get an education. “My father, who was a chief, told all of us that our inheritance was education”, she recalls. Judith did well at school and qualified for a scholarship to a prestigious girls’ secondary school called Mt St Mary’s College, a boarding school in Namagunga. “It was something no other primary student in the school had achieved”, she says. “I also qualified for university on a government scholarship. These opportunities opened many doors because I started interacting from secondary school with girls who went on to become influential ministers, members of Parliament, doctors and so on.”
Like her grandmother before her, Judith is a herbalist. “I remember my grandmother, who shared her knowledge of herbal medicine with me, very fondly. That’s when I knew that farming was my future. In 2005, I quit my job in the city and used all my savings in addition to a small loan from the village Savings and Loans Association to start Busaino Herbs & Fruits.”
Agroecology
BusHFruit is located in Busoga kingdom, one of four constitutional monarchies in Uganda, adjacent to one of the world’s greenest spots: the source of the river Nile. “It’s an adventure farm” Judith explains, “practicing agroecology and permaculture on its 1064 acres (430 hectares, red.) of land.” A big stream on the land provides a water source for irrigation. Located around thirty-five kilometres (+/- 22 miles, red.) from the Kenya border and near the Mombasa airport, Judith’s farm is easily accessible and able to export its produce.
At BusHFruit, agriculture blends with nature and culture, producing fruits, food and herbs and fostering two social enterprises. The first is the agroecological fruits farm on its 1064 acres, with 1002 acres (405 hectares, red.) focusing on avocados, jackfruit and herbs. “The farm collaborates with 25.000 small garden owners as in-growers of their food and as out-growers of avocado and jackfruit”.
The second is the rural artisanal processing enterprise where jackfruit and avocado seeds are blended with indigenous herbs to produce wellness infusions. There, wellness products are trademarked under NAMAZ. “NAMAZ is now a Collective Community Trademark, allowing women artisanal processors to earn an income”, Judith comments.
Social agri-preneur
“I see myself as a social agri-preneur”, she says. The majority of the small-scale garden owners who work with her on the farm are women and youths. “In their role as in-growers, they interplant their maize, soya, beans and vegetables in the fruit trees”, Judith explains. “As out-growers, they plant fruit trees as boundary crops on their own patches of land.” The woman of this farm community also have the opportunity to buy the avocados and jackfruit from BusHFruit and then resell them at schools or road side and border markets to earn extra money. “The women are artisanal herb processors who collect, sort and dry the herbs and do first level pounding and winnowing of avocado and jackfruit seeds and herbs for blending in the seeds powder. Rural women particularly are the sources of the vast knowledge in resilient seeds, herbs and shrubs and help insects and animals. This rich knowledge is in turn shared within school communities.”
“The life of a woman farmer is difficult”, Judith shares. “It is an overload of work, made worse by an increasingly harsh climate, the lack of technology, poor soils, a lot of mouths to feed and school fees to pay for.” Another difficulty to contend with is what Judith calls the ‘forest mentality’: “you have to work with the village to practice agriculture in Uganda, otherwise the villagers walk in and out of your farm and take your products without your permission.”
Senga
Comforted by her extensive experience as a woman entrepreneur, Judith is convinced that young women represent the future of agriculture. “The young generation of women are an asset to our industry”, she says. “They are numerous, they have lots of energy, innovative minds and are IT savvy! We need these young people for a wide variety of roles: as innovators to improve technical know-how, for value addition and marketing techniques.” Certain of the need to get a footing in agriculture from the urban elites, Judith is prepared. “My Senga (the name given to a paternal aunt, who traditionally is charged with teaching and advising on matters related to marriage and adulthood in Uganda, red.) experience is ready!”
At the end of our talk, Judith closes by sharing a hopeful observation for agriculture in her country: “the meaning of agriculture is changing for all generations of women, young and old. It used to be despised by the ‘educated’ and the young generation. Now it’s a source of new opportunities for all generations and classes!”
This article was published in Women in Ag Mag 2024-004. Click here to read the magazine
