Sustainable Matooke Farming Practices in Uganda

Highland cooking green banana, commonly known as matooke, is the staple food for the people of western Uganda. It is also the most popular food and cash crop among the rural households of Rubaya sub-county, Mbarara district. Like most of Uganda’s cattle corridor, Rubaya has been vulnerable to the effects of climate change, and the community has struggled with long droughts in recent years. The farming community has also struggled with pests and diseases, such as banana wilt, which has been one of the greatest threats to matooke farming in recent years. Amidst these challenges, the importance of evaluating farming practices and adopting sustainable agriculture practices cannot be ignored. This report has been developed under the project “Harnessing heterogeneous knowledge for sustainable agriculture”, which was implemented in Rubaya sub-country from January to March 2023. The project was funded by the University of Limerick Sustainability Challenge 2022. The project’s objective was to enhance knowledge sharing and co-creation of contextual sustainable agriculture knowledge on matooke farming in Rubaya sub-country. This booklet is one of the outputs of the project. The practices in this booklet were developed through collaborative workshops that were held with diverse stakeholders of matooke farming in Rubaya sub-country. Participants of the workshops included government agriculture extension officers, local leaders, agronomists, private sector agribusiness players, and farmers of all scales, i.e., smallholders and commercial farmers. Throughout the workshops, participants were guided by the attributes of sustainable agriculture as provided by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO)