Ogwang checking on of the tanks containing liquid organic fertilizer that is still under fermentation. All photos by Simon Eluk
By Simon Eluk
Lira
Lira City entrepreneur is recycling garbage to manufacture liquid organic fertilizer and manure to improve crop yields and boost production.
Denis Ogwang, of Lira City East Division, has established collection points in many areas especially in markets, to easily access the garden, and reduce the burden of garbage in the city.
Ogwang, who is the managing director of Fidela Agri Uganda Ltd, an Agribusiness Company, located at Odokomit along the Lira-Kampala Highway, said they pick garbage from markets, streets, and chapati dealers.
“We collect and sort out over 30 tons monthly,” he noted, explaining further that the innovation has given birth to the new fertilizer named “eggo organic fertilizer.”
“It depends on the collection, but I want to say our production is shooting up fast and the demand is also going up,” he added. The Liquid fertilizer is applied on crops by spraying.
The process, according to him, includes the collection of raw materials, sorting and cleaning, crushing, pre-fermentation, boiling, ingredient mixing, and fermentation, processing into liquid forms then packaging and bottling.
Ogwang said the fertilizer increases crop yield by 185% and has been recommended for use by the Uganda National Bureau of Standards (UNBS) and the National Agricultural Research Organization (NARO).
Currently, the processing plant is employing 29 people and selling 50 agents. Each bottle of 500mls is sold at 20,000 shillings and in a month, the entrepreneur earns shs60m per month.
Hatching the plan
Ogwang started the journey in 2020 after experiencing unrealistic challenges of poor crop yields, unreliable weather, and poor harvest that were compounded by the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“In that year we had COVID-19 outbreak across the World so the importation of agricultural input into Uganda from Ukraine and Russia was a big challenge,” Ogwang said.
The burden of garbage and other agricultural waste in Lira City also prompted Ogwang, to come up with an innovative solution to collect these wastes and recycle them into affordable products that can help farmers solve their problem.
Secures machine
Due to the demand high demand for organic fertilizer in Uganda and other East African countries such as Rwanda and Tanzania, Ogwang secured machines to crush the raw materials, and started recycling the waste into useful products for the farming communities.
Ogwang said the vision of the company is to see that every household in the country is food secure and with improved income.
“We don’t want the farming community to suffer as a result of famine again because we are creating resilience,” he said.
Ogwang has deployed four tricycles, locally known as tukutuku, to assist in collecting the garbage, and plans to procure a machine that can produce 40,000 liters of liquid fertilizers monthly, from the current 1000 liters, currently to serve the available market better.
A relief to Lira City from garbage
Leonard Otika, the City Environment Officer, said apart from recycling, Fidela Agri is sensitizing the public and the community in the market on the importance of garbage and how to sort out the useful ones and dispose them of without harming the environment.
The city generates between 100 to 120 tons of waste per day, especially from households according to Otika, and out of it, a higher percentage are recyclable.
“They should sort their garbage at the source so that biodegradable garbage can be turned either to manure or liquid fertilizers which can be used for agricultural production,” Otika said.
Otika commended the company for establishing its satellite markets in Omodo, Balpe, and Lira Main markets to facilitate the accessibility of garbage.
“The City council is perfecting it seriously so that we don’t look at the garbage as a waste but something useful in terms of providing organic fertilizers and manure for agricultural production,” he said.
He added that the City has also hired other partners such as Alliance Water Solution and Siloch Group of Companies to assist in garbage management.
Both according to Otika disposed of the garbage at the Aler compose plant located 10km north of Lira City along Lira-Kitgum road.
As service providers, the two partners are also helping to manage garbage on polluter pay principles, meaning the generator pays for the garbage they generate.
Otika thinks this is a sustainable way of managing garbage as seen by the reduction in careless garbage disposal compared to past years.
Efficient management
Three years ago, the authorities installed about 80 trash cans around the City Centre mainly for disposal of light waste materials, but later withdrew and re-stationed around public offices.
City mayor, Sam Atul, said different partners are now engaged in garbage collection and the only burden the City has is spending money on managing the compost plant in Aler.
Atul added that after dumping at the facility, it decomposes naturally and others that are not able to decay naturally are sorted.
Atul lauded the company for helping them to reduce garbage, saying it is the right way to go because 70% of them are recyclable, except that the population has not been taught how to sort them.
He cited that wastes such as banana and potato peelings are not garbage, because they are what families can use to feed their animals and improve their farm productivity.
“Even people have started seeing that they don’t have what they called garbage because if everyone was to sort it from home, we would not be so stressed about garbage,” he said.
Farmers speak out
Cypriano Okwir, a farmer at Barkwac village in Agweng Sub County testified that in 2022 after a prolonged dry spell, he used the fertilizer on soya beans, maize, and rice gardens and they were revived.
“Many people came to me and asked what I was applying to keep the plants green,” Okwir said.
Emmanuel Ogwang, also a farmer at Barlonyo parish in Agweng, said he had been using inorganic fertilizer during his seven years of large-scale farming but changed to inorganic fertilizer when he met the producer.
Ogwang explained that the producer of the organic fertilizer gave him its composition, which he applied in April 2023 when there was a drought for more than five weeks.
“The growth rate became different and branches started coming out compared to other farmers who had not applied,” he said.
