Activities
Buying & selling beans
KAFAMI’s first activity, and its purpose for forming.
Buying & selling coffee
Coffee is Uganda’s main cash crop and Arabica coffee beans in particular fetch high prices on the market. The mountainous area around Kaato Sub-county is a fertile area for coffee crops, and thus KAFAMI provides an avenue for farmers who live in remote areas to sell their coffee at fair prices, while generating profits for the cooperative.
Tree-planting
The planting of various trees in a nursery not only provide a farmer with shade, food, drink, etc. but also represents a potential source of profits. Products of trees, such as firewood, and even grafted seedlings, can be sold at a profit.
Stove-making and Bio-gas
The traditional open fires used by the local people to cook are a health hazard – the smoke is dangerous to the eyes, and there is the risk of things accidentally catching fire.
Rocket Rolena and UNICEF stoves are a safer, more efficient way of cooking. They also save on cooking time and resources as they only require a couple of sticks of firewood for effective heating, and can cook 2 different pans at a time.
They are made using a paste made from soil, sawdust, potato leaves and water. The making of a stove is very much a communal activity – everyone pitches in and gets their hands dirty!
Bio-gas is known as ‘local’ electricity. By capturing gas from waste food and animal materials households can utilise enough gas for all their cooking needs. This saves the cost of buying wood or cost to the local forest if collecting it. It also produces much less smoke than wood-fire stoves, and therefore a further improvement over open fires.
Beekeeping
KAFAMI are running an apiary farm. Beekeeping is an organic, easily manageable profit-generating agricultural activity.
Sustainable farming
Using modern farming techniques allows more produce to be farmed from the land and gives a better chance of a good harvest.