Central Uganda has two rainy seasons, and most families plant twice a year. When one season fails, the household eats through its reserve. When two fail, it eats the seed, and the next harvest is lost before it has started.
The families we meet in that situation have moved to one meal a day, taken children out of school because there is no money for fees, and borrowed at interest rates that keep them in debt for years. From the outside it looks like a dozen separate problems. From the kitchen it is one problem: there was no harvest.
Why seeds and tools come first
Food distribution keeps a family alive for a month. A season's worth of drought-tolerant seed, two hoes and a few visits from an agronomist keeps it fed for a year, and the part of the harvest kept as seed carries the gift into the following season. That is why our livelihoods program leads with seeds and training and uses food baskets as a bridge, not a destination.
Who we prioritize
With the village council, we select households headed by women and by grandparents caring for orphans, which are the first to go hungry and the last to recover. We visit at planting and at harvest and publish both, so that the people who funded the seed can see the field.
