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PROMOTING BANANA MACRO PROPAGATION TO ENSURE USE OF CLEAN SUCKERS TO REDUCE DISEASE INFESTATION AND INCREASE AVAILABILITY OF PLANTING MATERIALS TO THE BANANA FARMERS OF KATI KA NDEGEYA VILLAGE, KALAGALA SUBCOUNTY IN LUWERO DISTRICT

The field attachment was conducted with banana farmers of BajjaBasaagaKibikke farmers Group of Kati KaNdegeya village located in Kalagala Subcounty in Luweero District. BajjaBasaagaKibikke Farmers group works in association with ZAABTA, which was my host organisation. ZAABTA is located Northwest of Kampala, 50km along Kampala Zirobwe road, Zirobwe subcounty Luwero District. I did my SELPS I from DEL Agribusiness and Agrotoursm Farm in Nama Subcounty in Mukono District but because the farm had stopped working with interns, I changed and my SELPS II from ZAABTA. Being my first time in the area, I carried out a rapid rural appraisal where I identified the most pressing need as pests and diseases in banana fields of farmers in Kati KaNdegeya village. I together with the farmers agreed on the banana macro propagation project which is a relatively easy way of producing clean suckers by minimizing sucker transmitted pests and diseases as well as producing up to 64 suckers from one corm making suckers available to farmers. My extension objective was to reduce pest and disease infestation in banana fields in Kati Kandegeyausing banana macro propagation through demonstrating and training farmers how to multiply suckers in propagators and nursery beds. My research objective was to investigate the impact of banana macro propagation on availability of planting materials My internship objectives were; to scale out the use of banana macro propagation to reduce pests and diseases infestation in farmer’s field in Kati KaNdegeya village. To establish the causes of pests and disease infestation in farmers banana fields. To establish the impact of pests and diseases on sucker availabity. To establish the impact of pests and disease infestation on the productivity and profitability of the banana growing households. To establish possible solutions to pest and disease infestation in Kati KaNdegeya village. The methods and tools used to disseminate and collect information or data included focus group discussion, questionnaires both evaluation and baseline farmer meetings, demonstrations, observation check lists, pair wise ranking. I found out that men participate in banana growing more than women i.e. (69%) and (31%) respectively because women don’t have total control over land. The technology was adopted by 54% of the farmers who were trained. Though more women attended the training, the innovation was adopted more by men because it requires setting up propagators and nursery beds and providing optimum conditions for the seedling such as regulating the light and watering the seedling daily and therefore requiring a lot of energy. The government through its extension programs need to do more sensitization about the banana macro propagation being that banana is a major staple in Central Uganda and a major source of livelihood in most western districts of Uganda.

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Author: namuleme fatuma
Contributed by: asbat digital library
Institution: makerere university
Level: university
Sublevel: under-graduate
Type: dissertations