€2.1 million grant backs disability-inclusive farming in northern Uganda

The Italian Agency for Development Cooperation is funding the ECO-FOOD Uganda project, delivered in partnership with the Government of Uganda and CBM, to strengthen inclusive, resilient, and sustainable food value chains in northern Uganda.

ECO-FOOD Uganda launch brings partners together to strengthen inclusive, climate-smart farming and markets

The Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation is funding the ECO-FOOD Uganda Project through the Italian Agency for Development Cooperation (AICS).  

The €2.1 million ($2.4 million), 36-month initiative aims to strengthen disability-inclusive, climate-resilient agriculture and food security, with CBM Uganda, CBM Italy, and implementing partners leading delivery in partnership with the Government of Uganda.   

The project will operate in the Adjumani, Kole, and Lira districts and aims to reach more than 6,000 beneficiaries, including smallholder farmers, women, youth, and persons with disabilities.   

Why this is needed

The geography explains the urgency. Adjumani lies in Uganda’s West Nile region, near the South Sudan border, where displacement has reshaped local economies and intensified land pressure. Refugees make up more than half of Adjumani’s population, increasing competition for livelihoods and basic services. 

East of Adjumani, Kole and Lira districts lie within Uganda’s Lango sub-region, a largely agrarian area where most families rely on rain-fed farming and informal markets. The climate, which shifts from harsh dry spells to damaging floods, increasingly determines whether a season ends in profit or loss. 

Across these districts, smallholders face unstable yields, high post-harvest losses, and weak bargaining power in fragmented markets. Women and young people often face barriers to land, finance, and decision-making. Persons with disabilities face an additional layer of exclusion, ranging from inaccessible training venues and extension services to limited participation in cooperatives and producer groups. When market systems exclude them, they lose income first and recover last. 

ECO-FOOD Uganda addresses these constraints as a system, spanning production to markets. The project will promote climate-smart and nutrition-sensitive agriculture. It will improve post-harvest handling and storage. It will strengthen inclusive and competitive agricultural value chains, improving market access so producers can sell more reliably and on better terms.   

The project is designed to include persons with disabilities at every stage of the agri-food value chain, including training, production, aggregation, processing, and trade.  

What the project will do

The project’s targeting reflects this intent. ECO-FOOD will organise 1,108 marginalised nationals from 221 households into 37 farmer groups, built around land access and proximity. The project sets participation ratios at 40 per cent women, 20 per cent youth, 10 per cent persons with disabilities, and 30 per cent men.  

The project also extends beyond households. It targets farmers' organisations and local agribusiness actors to improve how markets work for small-scale producers and excluded groups.   

AICS’s director, Teresa Savanella, attended the launch in Kampala. The event brought together representatives from the Embassy of Italy in Uganda, AICS, CBM Italy, and Ugandan ministries responsible for agriculture, health, gender and social development, and trade and industry. Organisations of persons with disabilities, civil society groups, international partners, and consortium members were also represented. 

In this project, CBM will work through district structures and partners, including Community Empowerment for Rural Development, the National Union of Disabled Persons of Uganda, and the Institute for International Co-operation and Development.  

ECO-FOOD Uganda aligns with Uganda’s priorities for food security, climate resilience, and inclusive economic growth, where the payoff of inclusion is measurable through higher incomes, improved decision-making, diet diversification, and environmental conservation.

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