Veterinarian and Urban Farmer
Ugandan veterinarian and smallholder farmer Emma Naluyima practices a unique and highly effective blend of integrated farming. In this delightful talk, she explains how she does this on just one acre of land, or about four thousand square metres. In four different quarters, she cleverly manages to integrate the production of cows, pigs, chickens, fish, vegetables, fruits, and fodder, into a sustainable, circular production system that wastes nothing. To cap it all, with profits from the farm, she has managed to build, on the premises, a school that pays it forward by teaching the local children much-needed life skills.
These include important lessons about what happens if we optimise every single bit of what little we might have. Emma is known for being an innovative farmer with skills in veterinary, piggery, fishery, vegetables, training and capacity building. Her ingenuity has earned her several awards in her native Uganda, and globally.
She holds a Masters of Health Services Research, and a BSc Veterinary Medicine, both from Makerere University in Uganda. She has collaborated with the University of Wisconsin, with students visiting her farm for training every year since 2014. Emma has served as Chairman of Red Cross Mbarara and has written several op-eds published in the Guardian, Mail and The East African. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community