The Norwegian Research Council and NORAD awarded two 5-year capacity-building projects to the Norwegian University of Life Sciences. The two projects are; “Climate-smart Innovations in Agriculture in Uganda: Improved food security, livelihoods, and soil carbon”, and the “Climate Smart Agriculture in Uganda”. Both ClimSmart and NORHED II are implemented by three institutions including Makerere University College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences (CAES), Gulu University, and Rural Enterprise Development Solutions (REDS). The overall objective of the ClimSmart project is to contribute to increased food security, on-farm profitability, and entrepreneurship in communities of smallholder farms in Uganda, thus improving livelihoods through training and implementation of novel climate-smart practices in Agriculture. The overall objective of the NORHED II project is to generate and share new knowledge and to contribute to capacity building with respect to food security and on-farm profitability in Sub-Saharan Africa through innovative and sustainable climate-smart technologies.
The project sites are in Alebtong and Mubende districts representing two distinct agro-ecological zones. Broad activities under the projects´ objectives include setting up, running, and monitoring controlled field experiments and pot experiments; setting up randomized control trials and conducting surveys; training farmers on CSA technologies; collecting and analyzing data for all experiments, and knowledge generation and knowledge transfer, among others.
In line with the above activities, a team from Norway on the NoRHED II and ClimSmart projects will visit Uganda from March 2nd to 11th 2022. During their visit, the team will pay a courtesy call on the University and CAES leadership, and engage in a number of activities under the aforementioned projects. The team will conclude their visit with a guest lecture at Makerere University on Friday, 11th March 2022.
Delegation
- Vegard Martinsen
- Gerard Cornelissen
- Jan Mulder
- Andreas Smebye
Purpose of the visit
- To participate in NORHED II project activities planning
- To participate in field activities including biochar training and biochar making
- To make courtesy calls on the administrators of the partner institutions
- To perform field visits to the sites where experiments are being conducted
Schedule
| Day | Date | 8am – 12 noon | 2pm-5pm |
| Thur | 3rd | Courtesy call on University Secretary, Principal CAES, Dean SAS. | Courtesy call on REDS office |
| Fri | 4th | NORHED II – MAK | NORHED II – MAK |
| Sat | 5th | NORHED II – MAK | NORHED II- MAK |
| Mon | 7th |
Courtesy call on DPO, CAO, RDC, DAO Alebtong, Visit controlled trials Alebtong. |
Field visit to Awei and Amugu sub-counties |
| Tue | 8th | Biochar training Awei sub-county | Biochar training Amugu sub-county |
| Thur | 10th | Courtesy call on DPO, CAO, DAO, RDC Mubende. |
COVID tests |
| Fri | 11th | Guest Lectures at MAK |