A example of how the Climate Smart Jobs Program is having a positive impact, through the lens of Mme Milly Akello's experience in northern Uganda. Following on from our previous episode, ecosystems specialist Solomon Etany joins me in the studio to share the background to Mme Akello's story, and she tells us herself, with real passion and commitment, how the increasing cultivation of cocoa alongside traditional crops can enable farmers to make a better living.

We also talk to Moses Ayena for an overview of cocoa and coffee growing in the region, and the economic opportunities it represents.

The programs dicsussed in the episode are funded and run by the Climate Smart Jobs Initiative. If you'd like to find out more, go to https://www.csj.co.ug/

Special thanks to this week's guests Moses Ayena, Milly Akello and Solomon Etany. And thanks to you for listening - see you next time.

Josephine

'Adag-anii means that we don't want rumours, we want to work.'

Okullo Paul Peter is Managing Director of Adag-Anii Ltd, based in the the Lango sub-region of Uganda. In this chat he has a great story about how his company go its name - 'adag-anii.'

He talks to us about helping farmers adapt to growing cocoa as a cash generating, environmentally responsible alternative to maize. In partnership with the Climate Smart Jobs program, the idea is to help farmers access the market by helping them at all points in the process: preparation, cultivation, harvesting, processing and selling. And the aim is pretty simple when you boil it down - to ease the poverty that many people experience on a daily basis in these regions, partly as a result of climate change.

Cocoa has an interesting history in Uganda, as it turns out. It's been grown here since it was first introduced at the Entebbe Botanical Gardens in 1901. Initially, production was mainly limited to plantations, though - it was only adopted by smallholder producers in 1958. The crop is now grown by an estimated 120,000 smallholder farmers in at least 22 Districts, with more than two-thirds of the national harvest coming from Bundibugyo District; Hoima, Mukono and Kagadi are the other important producing districts.

In the bigger picture, cocoa is now one of the leading agricultural export commodities after coffee, with volumes more than doubling over the past decade. In 2024/25 some 75,545 tonnes, worth US $620 million, were exported to markets in both Asia and Europe. So this shift in priorities that Okullo Paul Peter is speaking about? For farmers, it makes a lot of sense.

Thanks so much to Okullo Paul Peter for taking time to speak with us. If you'd like more info about the Climate Smart Jobs Program, click on this link. Thanks for listening and see you next time,

Josephine

Batteries are a key technology for adapting to cimate change because they provide power on demand. Whether from solar, wind or wave, energy stored in batteries can be accessed at the flick of a switch. Brendan Cronin is CEO of Soleil Power in Kampala - East Africa’s first diversified lithium battery production company. He joins us in studio to explain a bit about how batteries work, how they're developing in the EV sector and what the future might look like for battery development in Uganda.

You can find out more about Soleil Power here:
https://www.soleilpower.ug/about-us

Thanks for listening and see you next time -

Josephine