Women Plant 11 Acres of Passion Fruits to Boost Household Incomes
Blog | 6/02/26
Asked why they started the project, the women group of 26 members (Nombe Women Conservation group) said they started the passion fruit project to address the challenge of low incomes at both individual and household level.
According to Tuhirirwe Annet a member, most women depend on their husbands for almost everything because they don’t have incomes of their own. “We are tired of burdening our spouses with all the family needs. This kind of strain cannot allow for development. So, we decided to start passion fruit growing to fix this. Once we start selling every woman will happily get their share of the sales and use that to address their needs,” Annet says.
In February 2024 the women started with making tree nursery beds and planting seedlings. About 60,000 seedlings of passion fruits and tamarillos were planted in six beds. 1000 seedlings were sold at 100Ugx each, and the money was used to buy seedlings on a larger scale.
This was followed by planting of the seedlings at both group and individual level. Collectively the group has planted 8 acres and at individual level about 3 acres altogether. According to the women, individuals have between 50 – 200 passion fruit plants on their farms. The women have a lot of hope in this project because of the readily available market in the area. Apparently, buyers from Kampala come to the village with trucks every Friday and over 100 sacks of passion fruits and tamarillos are bought from the farmers.
According to the women, an acre yields up to 4 sacks (100kgs each) of passion fruits. And a passion fruit plant produces fruit for about a year before it is cut down; with this investment the women are sure of passion fruit supply and income for the next one year. Even better, the women have already started making nursery beds to plant seedlings for the next cycle of passion fruits after this one. Currently the passion fruits have started creeping and will soon flower and fruit. “It shouldn’t be long before we start harvesting, passion fruits take averagely six months to mature for harvest. And ours are already halfway this period, “says Annet Musiime, the group Chairperson.
Among other plans, the women plan to save some money from the sales and buy heifers for each member as another way of diversifying their livelihood and income generating options. The heifers will not only provide milk for farmers but manure for passion fruit gardens. Currently the women are using the little manure from the chicken droppings of their chicken project.
