Establishment
Mukono ARDC was effectively taken over by the National Agricultural Research Organisation (NARO) on 3rd July 2000. Until then the Centre was called Mukono District Farm Institute (DFI). It is one of 12 Centres created by NARO under the National Agricultural Outreach Partnership Initiative (NAOPI), following recent changes in government policy and strategy. A major objective of NAOPI is to take services closer to the people and increase the participation of clients in efforts geared at improving their livelihoods. Clients need to be equipped with the capacity to identify their problems, possible solutions and the development of action plans for self-help initiatives in solving the problems. The clients need to be empowered with new ideas from which they could choose the best options for improving their farm productivity and incomes. The Centre is funded by NARO and generates some revenue from the sell of produce and hosting of workshops, seminars and meetings.

Mission
Mukono ARDC was set up to implement the objectives of the National Agricultural Outreach Partnership Initiative in different agro-ecological zones in the Lake Victoria Crescent. It is charged with conducting adaptive research and technology dissemination in the 11 districts that comprise the Zone. The overall objective of the research activities is the improvement of livelihoods of the communities through introduction and use of improved technologies

Management
Mukono ARDC is headed by a Centre Manager, who conducts the day-today management and administration of the Centre. A zonal steering committee made up of key stakeholders from 11 districts in the Lake Victoria Cresent drives the programmes and activities of the Centre.The zonal steering committee is comprised of representatives for farmers, heads of districts at Local Council 'V' level (LCV), Non-governmental Organisations (NGO), Community-based Organisations (CBO), National Agricultural Advisory Services (NAADS), the private sector, District Agricultural Officers (DAO) and the National Agricultural Research Organisation Secretariat (NAROSEC). The Committee is soon to be expanded to include agro-processors.

The Centre has four graduate staff including two Crop Scientists, a Finance Officer, and the Centre Manager. The Centre is also supported by the services of diplomats qualified in different disciplines including irrigation and livestock production and management. Recruitment of a Socio-economist and more scientific staff is underway.

Facilities
Mukono ARDC was thoroughly rehabilitated to improve on the facilities after it was taken over by NARO and the new management. The Centre offers a pleasant atmosphere to conduct seminars, workshops, and demonstrations of new agricultural technologies in a secure and easily accessible location.
- The Centre has a big hall that can accommodate 120 people with suitable services including public address systems, a video deck, a television, overhead and slide projectors and screen.
- Complete secretarial services can be provided at the Centre.
- There are four classrooms at the Centre. The largest can accommodate 50 persons, while the rest accommodate 20 people each. Furniture is movable to allow preferred sitting arrangement.
- The Centre has six dormitories that can accommodate up to 124 persons and four guest-rooms. Good housekeeping is provided together with running water (hot and cold) and toilet facilities in each dormitory.
- A balanced diet is served in two spacious and well-equipped dining rooms. The kitchen and the staff are capable of coping with large numbers as long as booking is made to communicate the numbers of participants.
- Three stand-by generators are in place to provide power when an interruption in electricity supply occurs.
- The Centre is very well served by a public motorcycle 'boda-boda' transport system. The motorcycles can be hired at a fee not exceeding US$ 0.5 from the Kampala-Jinja highway Ntawo stage. The Centre is served by a public MTN telephone call box for communication and a television set for entertainment and news.
- Night and day armed guards to ensure security of people and property at the Centre.

Activities
Mukono ARDC undertakes a number of activities including farmer training, demonstration of new agricultural technologies like new crop varieties, new animal breeds, e.t.c, multiplication of seed and planting material and poultry and livestock.
These activities may be conducted On-Station or Off-Station and through conducting Open and Field Days.
Farmer Training
The Centre has demonstration plots for annual crops including maize, beans, cassava, sweet potatoes, yams, indigenous and exotic vegetables, pasture and perennial crops including coffee, cocoa, bananas and a range of fruit trees.

Small plots are planted for demonstration of new crop varieties, while larger fields are planted for demonstration of improved agronomic, irrigation and, pests and disease management practices. Guided tours can be organized for visitors to the different crop enterprises. The Centre is open to all being a public institution.

Open and Field Days
Open and Field Days serve to create awareness about the activities of the Centre to farmers and the general public.

Demonstration of New Technologies
The Centre has set up three demonstration sites at the Centre, Busabaga and Butoolo, in Mukono and Mpigi districts, respectively. Local communities are responsible for ensuring the use of the demonstrations by farmers. The Centre assists in maintaining these sites.

Crops enterprises
Crop enterprises include among others bananas, beans, cassava, cocoa, coffee, maize, soybeans, sweet potatoes, yams, pasture and fruits (oranges, mangoes etc).

Livestock enterprises

There are five units in the livestock section including piggery, poultry, hatchery, dairy and pasture.

Activities include training farmers in livestock production and management, income generation from sells of animals and birds and distribution of improved breeds of birds and animals to farmers.
a) Piggery: The Centre multiplies two breeds of pigs namely, large white and land race breeds. Piglets are availed to piggery farmers to upgrade their local breeds and to those farmers starting pig farming. A total of 10 piglets have been placed in five farmers groups in Mukono.

Only 2 female piglets are returned to the Centre from the first farrowed litter for distribution to other farmer groups. The Centre documents how farmers integrate pig keeping in their farming system and identify researchable issues with farmers.

b) Poultry: Commercial layers and broilers are kept at the Centre. The eggs and meat are sold to the public and the rest are supplied to the Centre's kitchen. The Centre has a hatchery used to produce broiler chicks for sale to poultry farmers.

c) Dairy: The dairy is used to demonstrate semi-intensive grazing practices, combining zero and paddock systems. Milk and male calves are sold to the public.

d) Goats: A goat unit has been constructed in which improved milk and meat goat breeds will be introduced. Billy goats of South Africa Boar breed will soon be introduced to improve local breeds.

e) Pasture: Pasture and fodder management is demonstrated to farmers. The Centre has 1.7ha under pasture and 0.9ha under fodder plants.
The pasture is mainly a mixture of grasses (Chloris and Panicum species) and legumes (Centrosema and Siratro species), while the fodder plants are Napier grass (elephant grass), Setaria, Calliandra and Russian comfrey.

Multiplication of Seed and Planting Material
Multiplication of seed and planting material is a key activity at the Centre due to the high demand by farmers who visit the Centre. Multiplication is done for crops including beans, bananas, cassava, sweet potatoes, white and yellow yams, coffee and cocoa.
The Centre is evaluating dwarf types of Arabica coffee for resistance to wilt disease and has established a banana mother garden. Seeds and planting materials are supplied to farmer groups to innovate with in their farming systems and to multiply seeds for themselves. Fruit tree seedlings are produced for mangoes, passion fruits, avocados, citrus (sweet orange), lime, lemon and tangerines.
The seedlings are mainly propagated through grafting and budding. This ensures the reduction of the maturity period to 2 years from 5 to 10 in addition to ensuring disease free plants.

Stakeholder Participatory Planning Workshops
Planning workshops for feedback for action by the Centre or Research Institutes are held annually, to provide for the participants to identify and prioritize the zone's commodities and constraints affecting each commodity together with possible interventions. Stakeholders' participatory planning workshops are also held for the Integrated Crop Management Project. Stakeholders draw up work plans and identify the key elements that require urgent attention in key areas including: water harvesting and soil erosion conservation, animal manure and crop management, planting material, participatory planning, coordination, implementation, monitoring and evaluation.

Research Projects

Participatory community based research projects have been initiated. Farmers and scientists participate together in assessing the needs and opportunities for the village.The farmers set the priorities, upon which the scientists act for interventions. This approach ensures mutual learning, where the scientists and farmers learning from each other. In order to create impact, the ARDC starts in a small way working in one village and with smallholder farmers who are organized in groups. Key partners include Non Governmental Organisations (NGO) and Community-based Organisations (CBO).
Closer partnership is being forged through joint planning of research activities for the districts.

The banana rehabilitation project
This project was conducted in Mukono district, in the sub-counties of Kawolo, Goma, Wakisi and Najjembe during 2000-2001. The following activities were carried out:
" Sensitized the farming communities on banana technology transfer.
" Advocated for and encouraged community based group formation and strengthened existing ones.
" Provided advice on banana production and supplied agro-chemicals for farmers to practice with and learn banana weevil control
" Study tours were facilitated to other districts (Bushenyi and Mbarara) to share experiences and gain new knowledge on banana production
" Agricultural extension staff and CBOs of the areas actively participated in the project to ensure continuity of the practices learnt.

Integrated Crop Management (ICM) project
ICM is described as the management of the interactions among soils, plants, water, forests and animals. It is a holistic approach to sustainable farming that focuses on the knowledge and expertise of the farmer. It involves complimentary farming practices that improve productivity without depleting the natural resources base. The project is currently conducted in Kayonza and Wakisi sub-counties of Kayunga and Mukono districts.

The main aspect of the project is to document farmers' ICM practices. One of the objectives of the project is to encourage farmers' innovativeness on emerging and existing technologies.To stimulate this and evaluate farmers' innovativeness, farmer contests are organized among farmers and farmers groups. For this purpose improved varieties of maize, finger millet, beans, groundnuts, bananas, cassava, and sweet potatoes were distributed to farmers groups in Namaliri and Naminya parishes during the period of March-April 2002. The exercise also enabled farmers to multiply these improved seeds and planting materials for future use.

Farming and Livelihood Systems Research with Farmers
The Centre has initiated implementation of the Workplan for the zone. During the previous one and half years, the Centre has been working in two districts, i.e. Mukono and Kayunga but is now expanding by including four more districts, namely, Mubende, Masaka, Wakiso and Mpigi. Study visits to the new districts have been made and study sites (villages) have been selected and potential partners (farmers groups, NGOs and CBOs) have been identified. During the next visits, scientists will carry out needs assessment of the villages, jointly with the farmers and other potential partners.

Farmer-Research Group Institutional Capacity Building

The National Agricultural Research Organisation's strategy for adaptive research and technology dissemination programme is to operate through farmers groups.
Research programmes have effectively managed groups that function as business leading to improved functioning of the groups through the use of a guiding constitution and increased sense of ownership and responsibility among group members.

Co-operation

Japan/Mukono Agricultural Research and Development Centre Co-operation
The Ministry of Agriculture, Animal Industry and Fisheries (MAAIF) and other organizations through participating in Mukono ARDC programmes in the mid 1990s, successfully negotiated with the Japanese Government, through its International Cooperation Agency (JICA) to renovate the Centre under the Improvement of Agricultural Extension and Training Institute project.

Assistance Package
Through the project, a new conference hall with seating capacity of 120 people, a classroom block, a dining hall for 80 people, two dormitories and a livestock complex were constructed. Water collection ponds and four new nursery sheds (for raising fruit tree seedlings) were also constructed. The administration block and one dormitory were renovated. A pick-up and two motorcycles were provided and have greatly improved on the capacity of the Centre to conduct its outreach activities. The assistance also included a completely equipped 60 Horse Power (HP) farm tractor and a hatchery unit. The Centre road network was re-planned and graded to facilitate movement within and out of the Centre. Technical assistance was also provided from May 1999 to June 2002 in terms of farm and financial management. Farmer training skills and techniques were also provided to staff. Under the same project two staff members were facilitated to attend international courses in poultry and vegetable production in Japan.

Improvement of Centre Programmes and Activities
The renovation and re-construction of the Centre has boasted the facilities to enable the conducting of quality agricultural research, development and training. It has also greatly improved workshop facilities.The Centre no longer depends on periodic releases of funds from NARO headquarters for its on-station work, but meets most of its day to day running costs using revenue generated from hiring out its conference facilities and selling of agricultural produce. Part of the revenue supports the day training programmes for farmers' groups in the area of operation.

The Centre does also have well laid out fields that are essential for on-station experimentation.A number of research organisations like Makerere University, Sasakawa 2000 and other NARO institutes are currently conducting research using the centre facilities. The project developed capacity of staff that enabled them to execute their duties confidently and satisfactorily. In light of the expanded mandate of the Centre to handle outreach activities and the cordial relationship with JICA, a request for Japan Overseas Co-operation Volunteers (JOCV) was made by NARO. The volunteers would assist in the fields of livestock and vegetable production and marketing.

Currently these volunteers are serving at the Centre and are making great contribution to the implementation of Centre activities. The Centre has attracted several missions from the Japanese Government. A number of officials on these missions have expressed appreciation for the excellent maintenance of the facilities that were provided under the project.

The most recent mission from NIPPON KOEI promised assistance in capacity building of Centre staff to handle socio-economic issues concerning rural farmers.
The aspect of building capacity in socio-economic and livelihood analysis is crucial for staff of the Centre. This will enable staff to effectively interact with farmers and other stakeholders in agricultural development. It will also increase the capacity of staff to better understand the living conditions of the rural poor in order to identify what research can do to improve their livelihood.

Partnerships
Mukono ARDC works closely with key partners including NARO institutes, Ministry of Agriculture Animal Industry and Fisheries (MAAIF), farmers' groups, local extension agents, local government agents, Community Based Organizations (CBOs), Non-Government Organizations (NGOs) and other stakeholders in order to enable the achievement of its objectives.