The first ‘Christmas Piglets’ arrive at the farm

We were blown away by the response to our Christmas Alternative Gifts campaign - 51 piglets were ‘bought’ giving us the nice challenge of working out where we were going to keep them all :)

As you might remember, we had asked people to buy piglets as Alternative Christmas Gifts. We'll keep them for 6 months and then sell with profit, buying more piglets with the proceeds as well as help fund the White Eagles Project.

Well, we are happy to inform everyone that contributed that we have bought 10 piglets so far, and we have them with us at the farm. We will get more this month and next, thereby staggering when we sell them - we don’t want to create a glut on the local market :)

Stephen - one happy Farm Manager

Steven the farm manager is very happy that these piglets have come and he has been working hard to renovate the first pigsty, making it stronger to withstand attacks from wild dogs. Steven says that within a month, all the sties will be ready for their new guests.

That'll keep the wild beasts out!

We are so grateful for your contribution and may the good Lord bless you so much!
If you would like to contribute to the cost of renovating the sties, please do! Its never too late. Just head to: https://mydonate.bt.com/charities/ugandariveroflifeministries

Written by Mutebi Frank, our River of Life Roving Reporter

10 little piggies :)

Farming's the future!

It's been a productive season on the River of Life Farm...

Under the management of Uncle Kayima, the team have helped to reduce the food costs for the White Eagle project by supplying good amounts of beans and matooke. Our cash crops are also doing well - a new sugar-cane plantation is looking good, and the Plantain and Coffee we planted in February 2012 is developing well.

Our new piglets are all healthy, and Farmer Kay is adding to our stock by buying in some young pigs of some different (more valuable!) breeds. Our cow is due to give birth next February, so we will then be able to add milk to the White Eagle diet.

For 2013, Farmer Kayima is REALLY keen to establish a small chicken project. Well, 600 chickens to be exact, because, as he explains Chickens are great - they offer eggs AND meat. Tasty. He also wants to build a store so that we can get good prices for our produce, and consolidate the other areas or planting. The Farm is not self-sufficient just-yet, but it will be once all the development is done, as well as offering food security and reducing our costs at River of Life Church

Thank you to everyone who has "given the gift that can't stop giving" and helped develop the farm. If you would like to help, get in touch! £500 is enough to establish an acre, contribute to 20% of the start-up costs for the chickens or 10% of the store. You could do a sponsored event, or split the cost on a monthly basis - click here to download a sponsor form, or head straight over to our donation page (MyDonate by BT).

Down on the Farm... there’s a brand new cow

With a massive thank you to all who made this possible, the White Eagles can now look forward to milk, yoghurt and maybe even some cheese courtesy of our new cow!

About a year ago Uncle Kayima, our Farm Manager, planted some elephant grass declaring “you never know, maybe one day we’ll have a cow”.
Then, about 6 months ago, he started making noises about needing a cow-shed. Acting oblivious when it was pointed out that we don’t have a cow to put in it, the logic he preferred was that we had a tonne of elephant grass to get rid of, and the best thing for that job was a cow. Which needed a shed.

And because God is good, and you guys are generous, we were able to squeeze our budgets and Kayima got his shed. And a mighty fine one it is too. Of course, it seemed ridiculous to have a shed, a load of feed and no cow, and so, again through your generosity, on Feb 8th we became the proud owners of a Hybrid Friesan, which, all things being equal, should give us a couple of gallons of milk every day!

Now all we need to do is choose a name... any ideas?

Daisy? Doris? Frank? You decide!

Down on the Farm - November update

Just a quick update on the farm progress. This is from Emily's monthly report on the White Eagle Project:

The farm is going well. They finished planting elephant grass (for the cow to eat) all around the edge of the farm. The workers now pray together daily. The beans are looking very healthy, and have brought out flowers. The eggplants have flowered also. The surveyors from the government administration came to see if it’s possible to irrigate the farm. It is possible and they are making a budget for us.

To see a birds-eye view of farm, and some pictures of what's going on there, click here to view our map

Down on the Farm - October Update

Here's this month's update onthe farm, from Emily's monthly report:

"We thank God that we got some rain this month. About 110kg of beans have been planted, but we need more rain for them to grow well.  We’re praying for more rain.  The young matooke is coming out well now, and they have finished all the weeding, but we need more rain for the beans and the other things that have been planted."

To see a birds-eye view of farm, and some pictures of what's going on there, click here to view our map

On the new River of Life Farm

Today we visited our brand new farm! We have been wanting to start developing our own farm for a LONG time. Recently we acquired a fantastic site, just 2 miles from Nyendo, and although we haven't managed to pay the fantastically discounted £6,000 for the approximately 7 acres, the owners have allowed us to start developing it.

As we're feeding upwards of 40 people a day, and food prices are going through the roof (up 14% last year in Masaka, according to the Ugandan Bureau of Statistics, and up 57% in the last 4 years) Uncle Kayima has made it his personal ambition to develop the 7 acre site into the most productive area of land in Uganda, if not the world (!)

And what a huge amount of work has been done! Already about 2 acres have been dug, and sweet potatoes, sugar cane and yams planted - a small section was left for the FFC Missions trip to plant on their visit, and even though it was early and the sun wasn't at full strength, we got an idea of just how hard the guys must have been working.

It's now urgent that we get the Matoke (our staple diet of green bananas) in before the next rains, due any day now, so that they can get well established before the dry seasons. If we don't get it in now, we'll have to wait another 12 months, which we REALLY don;t want to do. But we need approximately £3,000 (10 million Ugandan Shillings) to plant it all out... Kayima and the Team are going to continue preparing the land, and as they dig, pray for provision!

If you are able to support River of Life's Food Security Project by investing in the farm, please either donate here, or get in touch with Rob by email

You can see a photo album of our visit to the farm on flick here