Fatuma Harvests a Brighter Future for Her Children

Fatuma Auma is a smallholder farmer, a nursery schoolteacher and a mother of four. Having nurtured young minds for several years herself, Fatuma knows the critical role education plays in defining the future of children, families and communities.

But in the Dokolo District of northern Uganda, where Fatuma lives, unreliable livelihoods and inadequate income restrict families from sending their children to school. And the thought of not providing this essential opportunity for her own children was a thought that often distressed Fatuma.

Most of the population in Dokolo live in poverty, and more than 90% of families rely on subsistence farming to survive. Small land size, lack of technical knowledge to improve yield, and inadequate access to critical inputs and services like good quality seeds, farming equipment, credit and crop insurance keeps smallholder farmers in the area from increasing production and earning a sustainable living income.

This makes it a challenge to ensure quality nutrition and health services for their families and education for their children. Before joining a Heifer project in 2018, Fatuma battled similar challenges and described that phase of her life in a single word: “hard.”

Her family has 6 acres of land where they grow soybeans, sunflowers, maize and sesame. Despite running a nursery — attended by around 98 toddlers, including her two youngest children — and bringing additional income from their surplus harvest, the money Fatuma was making simply wasn’t enough to meet her family’s needs. After basic expenses, like food and clothing, Fatuma couldn’t afford school fees for her two oldest children — until your generous support allowed her to change her fate.

Fatuma joined a self-help group started by Heifer’s Learn for Agribusiness project  — a joint initiative with the Edukans Foundation. The self-help group was launched to help young Ugandan farmers access the support, tools and training they need to improve their agricultural practices and increase their income to lead dignified lives.

Through the self-help group, Fatuma saw how to provide her children with a life of opportunity she always hoped for — by learning new skills, improving her yield and turning a higher profit. A few years later, she joined a registered cooperative established through the same project, the Dokolo Young Oilseed Farmers’ Cooperative.

A cooperative is a people-centered business driven by values of reciprocity and solidarity. For smallholder farmers worldwide, agricultural co-ops improve access to markets, supplies, knowledge and capital to grow their businesses and earn a stable income.

Through Dokolo Young Oilseed Farmers' Cooperative, Fatuma gained more knowledge and tools to help her improve the quality and quantity of her farm's yield. She learned new planting and crop management techniques, such as sowing seeds in a straight row, timely weeding and using environment-friendly pesticides, as well as new harvesting and post-harvest handling techniques. She also received a seed loan worth 150,000 Ugandan shillings, about $41 USD, to strengthen her sunflower crop, and another loan worth 250,000 Ugandan shillings to help her start growing soybeans.

 At the beginning of each season, the cooperative provides tractor services to farmers at a nominal fee, which helps farmers like Fatuma plow their fields and save costs on engaging manual labor for digging the land. And when the harvest is ready, the cooperative buys the produce directly from Fatuma and transports it to the storage facility, saving her time and transportation costs. 

“Farmers have embraced farming on a larger scale and good agronomic practices, which have improved their sales and quality of life,” Fatuma said. “In addition, friendships among members of the community have grown stronger.”

Thanks to your support, Fatuma’s yields have more than doubled — and so have her profits. Even when she struggled through a particularly hot dry season, making only one-quarter of the income she expected to, crop insurance provided by the cooperative helped ease the losses and make up the difference.

The profit Fatuma earns from her harvests help her run her household, keep her children in school and pay back her loans. With her profits, she also purchased a cow and built a storage facility on her land — an investment that helps her save costs and diversify her sources of income.

“I had no ways of meeting my children’s needs,” Fatuma said. “[Now] we are happy. The children get fees and requirements for school.”

And Fatuma has not been alone in her success. More than 3,880 participants are enrolled in the project. They have increased their income by 70% with the help of skill development training. Through project-supported cooperatives, these participants can now leverage market linkages, access micro-loans to invest in their businesses and increase their income.

Fatuma’s home compound still remains full of children reciting lessons, flipping pages of their notebooks and playing games. And for Fatuma, a stronger farm and increase in income opened the door to resilience and enabled her to keep her children in school and on the path to a productive future.

As a Friend of Heifer®, you made this success possible — for Fatuma and families all over the world. Thank you so much for your generous spirit and desire to make lasting change.