Janet Amongi's story

Janet Amongi

“Eating local vegetables changed my life by helping my household eat vegetables daily and access quality seed.”

Janet Amongi is a 28-year-old resident of Obia East, Bardege Division in Gulu Municipality. She is married with two children. Janet joined the local vegetable production and consumption project through her VSLA group, Waneno Anyim, and liked the project from the beginning, through training, planting, and consuming local vegetables. After several trainings, VEDCO established a demonstration garden where group members could learn practically. VEDCO also gave seed to all members to establish home gardens. Janet planted a quarter-acre of cowpeas and began consuming the leaves after only two weeks. Producing and consuming local vegetables has changed her life in several ways. She now understands local vegetables and their nutritional value, and her household can eat local vegetables daily unlike before, when they ate them only twice a week. Community members can also access local vegetables from her farm at a cheaper price than the market, and sometimes she gives them freely. In her group, Janet was able to settle her loan dues in a short time after selling local vegetables. The most significant change for her is increased daily consumption of local vegetables, especially because buying them from the market had often been too costly. She also learned that regularly picking cowpea leaves helps the plant produce more seed, allowing her to multiply seed for future planting. To sustain the changes she has experienced, Janet plans to keep producing her own seed and share seed with neighbours so the community can continue growing vegetables and support one another if seed is lost.