Hybrid Maize varieties Providing Cushion for Lira farmers as Climate Change Effects hit production
By Denish Ongora
Lira:
Tonny Ali is a maize farmer who has specialized in planting hybrid maize varieties.
He made this choice in 2017, beginning with a variety known as DK8033, eventually moving on to DK777.
Ali, a resident of Amiabil Cell, Amiabil Ward, Agweng town council, Lira district said the white seeded maize variety is high yielding, and tolerant to drought.
“Right now, I have DK 777 in a three-acre piece of land from which I am expecting 40 bags and with the current prize of UGX.700 per kilogram, I am is expecting UGX2.8 million from sales,” he stated.
When he started planting improved maize varieties, Ali used to get 5-6 bags of grains per Sacket of seed planted but he is now getting 40 bags.
He admitted carrying out bad agronomic practices in the past such as planting maize consistently in the same garden without applying any type of fertilizer.
According to Ogwang Alele, hybrid maize should be rotated with legumes and for soil that has less fertility, a farmer should apply either organic manure or manufactured fertilizer from the input shops.
Ali says he is happy because he is getting more bags of grains compared to when he was planting old nonhybrid maize varieties.
From the climate resilient maize varieties, Ali has constructed a four-room permanent house, bought a number of sheep and goats, has acquired oxen and ox plough, and can easily pay school fees for his children.
Joyce Alum, Ali’s wife, who has planted DK 8031 maize variety around her home, testified that her life started to improve when they started growing hybrid maize variety.
“When I started growing it, I had no good house then it gave me good yield then I sold and constructed the and also bought some animals”, Alum testified.
She said she was able to buy household items that she did not have.
The duo is an example of a household in Lira, a northern Ugandan district where maize production was projected to increase by 12% from 27,833 metric tons in 2023 to 31,314 metric tons in 2024 according to Africa Agriculture watch (AAgWa).
AAgWa, a project of AKADEMIYA2063 uses artificial intelligence-based model known as Africa Crop Production Model, to forecast crop production at the beginning of every season.
This information is thought to be vital especially to those involved in the agriculture value chain to better plan and execute policies and business actions.
Those who add value to maize prefer hybrid varieties to the indigenous maize varieties to produce posho because they are believed to have thin husks and produce more posho than maize bran.
Geoffrey Otim, the assistant agricultural officer of Lira district, who is in charge of Agweng Town council, said they are now encouraging farmers to plant hybrid seeds mainly because of the changing climatic conditions that has made the indigenous varieties to perform very poorly in Lango sub region and beyond.
Otim confirmed that a hybrid maize variety is resilient to harsh conditions when backed up with correct modern agronomic practices.
Picking example from a garden belonging to the sub county chief of Agweng that is adjacent to Agweng sub county headquarters, he said the garden was attacked by the American fall armyworm but the maize crops have still produced large cobs.
“I now encourage my farmers to go for improved seeds, the varieties that are able to withstand prolonged dry-spell, and those that are able to withstand diseases and pest infestation,” Otim recommended.
According to Otim, Lira district is always advising the farmers to buy seeds from certified agro-input dealers who always have their certificates displayed in their shops.
Another option is for the farmers to buy seeds jointly in a group and liaise with extension workers to identify certified input dealers to avoid buying counterfeit inputs.
He also confirmed the availability of the extension workers on the ground to offer assistance to farmers whenever there is need.
Otim however revealed that farmers are complaining of low price of grains vis-a-vis high cost of improved seeds.
Crystal Crop Protection, dealers in agriculture inputs, located on Note-Ber Road, Lira City sold more DK777 maize seed in the second seasons of the year than any other cereals.
The price ranged from UGX.30, 000 to 35,000 for every 2kg package depending on its availability, while other maize varieties such as; Bazooka, DT max, Longe 10 H, Tembo, ETG maize, Pana Maize, DK 8031, DK 9089, DK 8033 have prices much below UGX.30, 000 per 2kg package.
Sarah Awelo, assistant sales agronomist at Crystal Crop Protection, believes that farmers prefer DK777 because of its good performance of 32 bags per acre of land when good agronomic practices are applied.
The good yield has also promoted the use of simple technologies such as handheld tractors and ox ploughs to open larger land for farming, and machines for threshing maize after harvest which also relieves women from doing heavy work of production.
“When the grains are drying in an open space, women may only participate in covering in case it is going to rain, but in the old days, women used to do a lot because the yield was little and people could prefer that they do the work by themselves,” Awelo observed.
To reduce on the cost of production, some farmers prefer to use selective herbicide at the first weeding to enable them weed only once.
This allows women more time to attend to other house chores or and to grow vegetables to subsidize the diet of their families.
Hybrid maize varieties mature within three to four months, quick enough to rescue a family from threats of famine and poverty.
Walter Ogwang Alele, who works at Salak Agro input dealers, Olwol road, Lira City as an Agronomist, said that a number of farmers are growing maize in large scale for food security.
He added that the maize farmers also use the money from sale of maize to buy other food stuffs to supplement family diet, as well as paying school fees among others.
“There is also food and we should not only grow for sale. You can make bread to sell at the trading center, you can boil maize together with beans and sell, you can make porridge for sale to earn money. We should start doing value addition, so that we don’t complain so much about low prize” Ogwang advised.
Pamela Walter Ogwang, of Alima Grain Millers, located on Aber Road, Lira City said DK 777 and local varieties are always her first choice when buying maize grains for value addition, because they bring out more posho that are whiter than other varieties.
“There is good feedback from our customers, they say our posho is nice and they always don’t accept buying posho with unbranded sacks for fear that it is not the actual one we always produce,” Pamela narrates
A kilo of posho in Lira city is sold at UGX.2, 000 for second class and UGX.2, 300 for the first class.
Dr. Otim Godfrey Anyoni, a research officer and crop agronomist at NARO-Ngetta Zardi said the breading of crops at the institute is focusing on mitigating the effects of climate change such as prolonged dry spell and that they have developed seeds that are resilient to diseases such as lethal necrosis.
The maize varieties developed by NARO are; Bazooka, and Longe 10 H that are hybrid seeds, but also Longe 5 D which is open pollinated variety.
Dr. Otim advised the farmers to avoid bush burning, practice crop rotation, ensuring they take back to garden crop remains after harvesting and threshing.
He urged the farmers to use fertilizer to get good yield from improved varieties, and he advised those who can’t afford fertilizer to plant longe 5 D that is cheaper in terms of seeds, have higher nutrients.
In 2023, unscrupulous dealers started producing fake seeds of highly selling varieties, prompting a joint crackdown by the ministry of agriculture, animal industries and fisheries, Lira district production department and Lira City Authorities, leading to the closer of several agro-inputs shops.
The principal agricultural officer of Lira Alum Dorcas, said there is high level of compliance by inputs dealers this year because of last year’s crackdown and they are no longer receiving cases of counterfeit inputs from farmers.
Alum said there are 107 licensed agriculture input shops in Lira city out of 300 shops dealing in farm inputs.
She advised farmers to always get receipts of the inputs they buy to help them follow up in case they are sold counterfeit inputs.
This story was produced with the support from InfoNile in Partnership with Palladium under the climate smart agriculture reporting project.
