Naads Programme and Household Income in Uganda A Case Study of Busolwe Town Council Butaleja District

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1 Introduction This chapter presented the background of the study, problem statements, purpose of the study, objectives of the study, research questions, scope of the study, significance of the study and conceptual framework as broadly discussed below. 1.2 Background of the study National Agriculture Advisory Service (NAADS) is a government of Uganda program under the Ministry of Agriculture, Animal Industry and Fisheries formed under NAADS Act of June 2001 with an objective to develop a demand driven, farmer led agriculture service delivery system targeting the low income households mainly farmers with emphasis on women, youth, and people with disabilities. The project is currently in phase two and development goal is to improve the rural livelihood by increasing productivity and profitability in subsistence manner NAADS (2006). NAADS is today operating in more than 75 districts and more than 1032 sub-counties including pen urban areas with the mission to increase farmers access to information, knowledge and technology for profitable agricultural production aimed at improving the low household incomes and having a decentralized, farmer-owned and private sector serviced extension delivery system contributing to the realization of agricultural sector development objective. Phase (I) was funded through an arrangement called Basket funding, where funds are pooled into a common,,baskef~ under the government consolidated fund. The cooperating partners contribute 80%, the Government of Uganda 8%, local Governments 10%, and farmers 2%. However other arrangements of funding under phase (1) include the European Union, Agriculture Research Training Program (ARTP II) and Danid Alaa, M.G.L and James, S.N.(1996).