Protected Plants Protect the Farmers’ Harvest and Income. Photo credit: Peter Labeja, Olube Agro Dealer Shop, Terego District Photos by Peter Labeja.
By Peter Labeja
Koboko: Access to safe and effective pest protection inputs is significantly helping farmers in Koboko district respond quickly to pest outbreaks and protect their crops in the changing weather patterns across the West Nile subregion.
Such crop-protective inputs include approved pesticides, biological controls, traps, and other integrated pest management tools accessed from agricultural input dealers and suppliers.
In West Nile subregion, the lack of timely access to quality inputs has been complicated by low literacy level among smallholder farmers, making them unable to locate or identify the best variety to use, read safety labels on them or separate the most active ingredients to apply on their crops in times of need.
This explains why the seed sector in the region covering thirteen districts has continued to face persistent issues of fake seeds, fake pesticides, poor seeds germination rates and technical incompetence for years.
Climate change impacts have complicated it further by making certain pests survive longer than expected, spread to new areas, or multiply more quickly among farmers – leading to serious crop losses, especially when farmers do not have timely access to pest protection inputs.
Over the last eleven years, Wonderland Farm Services Single Member Company has been working to address such challenges from its outlet in Koboko district.
Benard Alamiga Oku, the Director Wonderland Farm Services Single Member Company Limited, founded the Company in 2015 while he worked as a state rural agriculture extension officer. With 18 years of experience, he is currently serving as the chairperson of Agro input dealers of West Nile subregion comprised of 13 districts.
“Wonderland Farm Services SMC Limited was born out of a three-week residential farmer training in 2015 in which we trained farmers step by step in practical horticulture.” Alamiga explained.
Few months later, one of the beneficiaries of the training returned to Alamiga to proclaim his success with vegetables saying he earned 3.8 million shillings from a quarter of an acre. The news was devastating to Benard Alamiga Oku, who had never received such a personal amount in his entire years of work as an extension worker.
The unidentified farmer helped Oku to prepare land and set up a similar enterprise on a quarter of an acre of land, supervising its growth step by step up to marketing. Oku achieved similar success with Tomatoes – 3.8 million shillings as partial capital he used to establish Wonderland Farm Services SMC Limited.
Seed Aggregation
Alamiga’s rare success with vegetables inspired him to connect more farmers in Uganda and Democratic Republic of Congo to point of services. The Company procure protective inputs from dealers in Kampala and supplies them to farmers in West Nile and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
“We use our expertise to aggregate the inputs. And our twelve field extension staff serve farmers from their various locations or from the two large demonstration farms we have in the two neighbouring countries, respectively.” He proclaimed.
At its main branch in Koboko district, a range of agricultural inputs such as quality seeds, chemicals for pests and diseases at home and farms, fruit trees, and tools are available on offer to farmers.
As Climate change make farming more difficult for an average smallholder farmer through unpredictable rainfall, rising temperatures, and droughts, changing pest patterns are putting crops and farmers’ livelihoods at risk across northern Uganda.
In 2025, the Climate Smart Jobs project of Palladium partnered with agro input dealers like Wonderland to make protective crop inputs available to the ordinary smallholder farmers in the region, alongside free farmer training, free extension visits, and farm planning for those working in groups.
“When farmers have the right input, knowledge, and support, they can control pests before damage becomes severe. This helps maintain yields even when climate conditions create new pest challenges.” Alamiga Benard Oku explained.
Pest protection is therefore more than protecting a crop today. It is part of building resilience for tomorrow. By reducing avoidable crop losses, farmers can protect food supplies, incomes, and household livelihoods.
Farmer Group Enterprise Model
Climate change requires farmers to adapt quickly to beat the scorching sun heat, droughts, fluctuation in prices of produce, loss of soil fertility and the unreliable weather.
Through the partnership, Wonderland uses one acre model to lift farmers off poverty. It comes in three versions – food security model, Climate Smart Model, and the Commercial model.
According to Benard, they encourage a farmer to fragment the one-acre piece of land into four quarters, with all quarters planted with the same vegetable over separate months. This ensures consistent production of the same enterprise throughout the year and increases the land holding for the smallholder farmer.
He explains that “the model extrapolates from one quarter to three acres per year per farmer in the first cycle. When expanded to half an acre every year per farmer, the production effectively doubles the economy of scale for the farmer to up to six acres a year of the same enterprise.”
Under the Model, Climate Smart Jobs supported the establishment of irrigated plots of land for the farmers to train and practice their skills on site.
Value Chain
As Wonderland improves access to appropriate pest protection inputs, it is combining the service with good agricultural practices and integrated pest management, giving farmers stronger tools to face a changing climate in a complete value chain.
“The farmer training starts from land selection, land preparation, nursery establishment, management up to marketing. We evaluate the soil for the farmer, so we do not under charge or overcharge them while ordering fertilizers, so that Wonderland provides what is sufficiently required for that cycle of production.” Alamiga expounded.
Farmer Group Enterprises under the Climate Smart Jobs also benefit from risks reducing insurance established through expert analysis during the farmer training in a particular crop value chain. The experts analyze risks of pests and diseases and recommend measures such as irrigation for droughts, pesticides, and chemicals for identified diseases.
Conditions like too much rain and natural disasters have no immediate remedies. To ensure the small-holder farmers are protected against such a risk, the Company provides Farmer Group Enterprises with risk-specific insurance which includes fresh seeds supply for the next season, after which the farmers are supported to market the produce.
Wonderland supports 20 Farmer Group Enterprises to produce the same enterprises. When the first ten is producing tomatoes on 10 acres, the rest will focus on onions on 10 acres as well. The model, Alamiga says is changing small holder farming five farmers at a time.
Export Pathway
The vision is to formalize the Farmer Group Enterprises into agribusiness companies who will sell to a depot established by Wonderland to aggregate for exportation. Similar farmer group enterprises (FGE) have been established and formalized with support from Climate Smart Jobs project among refugee communities in Kiryandongo district, Acholi, and Lango subregions.
Wonderland’s Farmer Group Enterprise database indicates a network of 14,000 farmers served since establishment in 2015, with 80 customers visiting the input center daily during the wet seasons. The number oscillates between 20 and 50 customers during the dry season a day.
In Terego district, the Climate Smart Jobs Project works with Olube Agro Dealer Shop based in Omugo Sub County. The Company deals in quality, genuine, and affordable agricultural inputs in addition to providing farmer training, soil testing services, and extension.
Hillary Maniko, the Managing Director of the Company says the Shop implemented the Village Engine Model with Palladium in 2021 before it established an agro input center in 2025 to serve farmer group enterprises in the district.
“Here we are promoting the Pfumvudza farming Model in vegetable growing as a demonstration of the practices we teach to farmers. The farmers learn climate smart agriculture practices such as heavy mulching, minimum tillage, water conservation, and pest management, organic fertilizers’ application, among others.” Maniko said.
Maniko says when a farmer fails to control pests in his enterprise, crippling diseases will attack the crops, effectively reduce their yields, or drive up the gross cost of production.
In Acholi subregion, Consult Agri Querry Solutions, a youth led micro enterprise dealing in agribusiness consultations, marketing, and training. It has ten years of experience in rural agriculture development supporting more than 10,000 women and youth.
“Our focus is to impart Climate Smart Agriculture with our green house for us to raise quality hybrid seedlings for farmers intending to acquire them because some of the inputs are too expensive for small holder farmers to afford them individually.” Edward Kitara, a Company Extension Worker with Consult Agri Querry Solutions stated.
The micro enterprise, based in Oyinya Village, Panyabono Parish in Alero Subcounty, cautioned farmers to be careful about cheap agro input dealers saturating the market. He says their target is to disrupt the supply chain of fake inputs sold by hawkers carrying inputs in back bags.
“Last season we trained 10 groups of farmers in production of onions and egg plants. We will link them to buyers in Gulu City, Kitgum and Lamwo to sell to the refugee communities at good prices.” Kiatara explained.
The farmer groups signed agreements to produce cabbage for the farmer group.
Majority of smallholder farmers in Northern Uganda still plant grains sold in open markets instead of seeds bought from accredited agro input dealers and seed breeders, according to Concern Agro Input Dealers. The dealer has extended its services to Six different sub counties in Nwoya district where it operates outlets with 16 full time staff.
From this feature, it is evident that protecting the crop by will protect the harvests and build sustainable resilience to climate change among small holder farmers.
