National Agricultural Advisory Services in Uganda

NAADS vision

"to have a decentralised, farmer-owned and private sector serviced extension delivery system..."

Its mission

“…to increase farmer access to information, knowledge and technology for profitable agricultural production"

Guiding principle
One of its key guiding principles is the empowerment of farmers as key stakeholders in the agricultural sector.  NAADS helps farmers to have access to and control over structures and processes that transform their natural resource assets into outcomes that they desire.  More specifically, NAADS:

• enables farmers to organise and create institutions through which they can act collectively and get their voices heard in / control the decision-making processes
• builds up farmer capacity to demand for both research and productivity-enhancing agricultural advisory services and technologies
• enables farmers to access information and resources to influence policies that affect them and thus have control over the provision of agricultural services
• builds up farmer capacity to monitor and evaluate the programme in general and service provision in particular

Institutional / financial organisation

In order to cater for sustainability, key stakeholders co-fund the programme.  The percentages are based on the NAADS budget at the particular level.

• District local government - 5%
• Sub-county local government - 5%
• Farmer groups (on SC budget) - 2%

The remainder is financed by the national government and - in the first phase of seven years - by the donor community through a common basket which is managed through the normal Ministry of Finance budget.  75% of the total NAADS budget goes direct to the NAADS sub-counties.

The farmers' contributions will increase over the 25 years of the programme as they shift - through market orientation - from subsistence to commercial production.  At the same time, the share of central public funding will reduce over the same period such that, by the end of the programme, it will account for not more than 50%.

The programme is implemented through sub-county and district local governments.  At both levels, there is a NAADS co-ordinator responsible for over-seeing and co-ordinating programme implementation.

NAADS activities, including farmer group work plans, are totally integrated into the sub-county and district development plans to ensure transparency and harmonisation.

Farmer institutional arrangements comprise:

• Farmer groups registered with NAADS
• Community based facilitators
• Parish co-ordination committees
• Sub-county farmer fora
• District farmer fora

The elected Sub-county farmer forum, representing all the NAADS registered farmer groups in the sub-county, have an Executive Committee, responsible for the day-to-day management of activities, and a Procurement Committee, responsible for all the contractual and funding arrangements.

At national level, there is a Secretariat which provides technical guidance, programme co-ordination and supervision to the districts and sub-counties.  The Secretariat itself is overseen by an elected Board, largely made up of farmers.  There is also a National farmer forum made up of the Chairpersons of the District farmer fora.

The programme is currently (end 2005/06) in 49 districts (71% of the total), representing all the ecological and geographical zones of Uganda, and in 346 sub-counties (46% of the total rural sub-counties).  By the end of the first seven-year phase (the end of financial year 2007/08), the whole country should be covered.

Enterprise development

As a strategy for enterprise development, NAADS has taken on a farmer-driven participatory enterprise development and promotion intervention.  The approach is designed to ensure involvement of all stakeholders at sub-county, district and national level in the planning and implementation of enterprise initiatives to accelerate market orientation in production.  To date, over 40 different enterprises - ranging from agro-forestry, bee keeping, oyster mushrooms, temperate and tropical fruits, fisheries and livestock - have been selected and are being promoted in the NAADS participating sub-counties.

A number of technology development sites (TDSs) have also been set up at farmer group level to increase farmer access to information and technologies.  The sites are used for development and multiplication of foundation technologies as well as training farmers.  To date, well over 6,000 TDSs have been established in participating districts and approximately 393,000 farm households are directly benefiting.

Partnerships

The NAADS enterprise development and promotion approach recognises that close integration of the production, processing and marketing systems is essential for farmers to realise increases in both productivity and profitability.  Initiatives by both the private sector and NGOs can facilitate this integration and are useful opportunities to reinforce the process of commercialisation.

NAADS is partnering with various stakeholders in the public and private sectors to ensure that a pull is provided to move farmers towards enterprises for which markets can be assured.  Various national level initiatives have provided opportunities for establishing partnerships for strategic enterprise development in different commodities.  Such partnerships are already contributing to enhanced uptake of improved technologies and farm manage-ment practices resulting in increased farm household incomes and better livelihoods.

The Source of the Nile National Agricultural and Trade Show, Jinja

Results so far...

Last financial year (2004/05) was the mid-term of the first phase and, as per the design of the programme, it underwent its mid-term evaluation.  A number of internal and external studies and assessments were carried out prior to the culminating meeting held in May / June of 2005.  These studies looked at variously:

• Farmer empowerment: has NAADS empowered farmers to better demand and manage advisory services?
• Availability of services: Has NAADS increased farmer access to agricultural services?
• Quality of services: Has NAADS increased the quality of agricultural services?
• Adoption rates: Has NAADS increased adoption of improved agricultural techno-logy and farm management among farmers it reaches and those around them?
• Yields and incomes: Has the adoption of technologies and management practices promoted under NAADS led to improved yields and incomes for those adopting?

The answer to all of the above is YES!  And the studies have the evidence to prove it.

In the light of this, one of the key conclusions made at the May Meeting was that the initial implementation of NAADS has been successful.  Moreover, the evidence shows that NAADS is a viable way to organise advisory services, it is less expensive than predecessor programmes and it is having a greater impact on farm productivity and incomes.

This confirms what had already been determined by a study carried out when NAADS was only 2 years old: that partici-pation in NAADS was associated with a 15% increase (over non-NAADS farmers) in the value of crop production per acre.

Increased adoption

Recent real-life stories are consolidating on the findings of that study.  More and more farmers are adopting and multiplying technologies being developed through NAADS.  For example, through linkage with Bee Natural Products (bee products market) and use of improved beehives, farmers are reporting a 100% increase in honey yields together with significantly improved quality giving rise to increased profits in the enterprise.  The quality of the honey is sufficiently high that Ugandan honey is now being exported to Europe.

More information...
NAADS periodically publishes a "Book of Stories", written from the farmers' perspective, on the successes (and failures!) of the programme.  The most recent one can be found, along with other documentation, on the NAADS website at:
www.naads.or.ug