In Kamuli district located in eastern Uganda, adolescent mothers are using backyard gardens to grow food for their families. For many, these small plots of land have become spaces of liberation in lives constrained by poverty, dependence and stigma. This experience shows that the most meaningful change can sometimes happen through a seemingly modest approach.
While soil erosion, climate stress and declining soil fertility are undermining smallholder agriculture for all farmers in Eastern Uganda, the added burdens of poverty, limited land ownership and restrictive gender norms disproportionately affect adolescent women and young mothers. Many drop out of school due to early pregnancies, facing social stigma and lacking access to land, income or decision-making power within their households.
Transactional relationships
Most young mothers depend entirely on their husbands or other male relatives for food and money. As shared by Monica, a 24-year-old mother of two: “Even asking for money to buy vegetables could cause quarrels at home”. During prolonged dry seasons, families experience ‘hungry months’ when meals are skipped or reduced to one per day. Transactional relationships have become a survival strategy for some young women, increasing their vulnerability to exploitation, violence and repeated unwanted pregnancies.
In this context, we began holding listening sessions with women in rural communities to understand their daily realities and constraints. They shared how they saw food insecurity and poverty as the main barriers to their participation in community development. Young women emphasised the need for activities that can be carried out with low-cost inputs and prioritised food and income. Many young women shared that they live on family lands where their access can be withdrawn at any time. Many existing development or farming programmes exclude them because they are focused on people with large landholdings.
In these sessions, we collectively developed an idea around small plots as realistic options for empowering the young women. We designed an initiative centered on backyard gardens that could be managed within homesteads or small negotiated plots to provide food and income, prioritising vulnerable women, youth and adolescent mothers with limited or no access to farmland. This is how the women’s insights shaped the design of the Women’s Garden Initiative, with a focus on fast-growing vegetables and garden-based learning.
Simple but radical
The initiative was designed with a simple but radical idea: What if young mothers could reclaim agency and dignity through food grown right at home? More than 100 young women were trained in organic vegetable gardening, soil and water conservation, composting and other agroecological practices. These women were selected from multiple villages in five sub-counties of Kamuli and Buyende districts. They were identified in collaboration with local leaders and women’s groups, with priority given to young women and adolescent mothers aged 18 to 35 years who are highly vulnerable to food insecurity.
Because the trainings were held near homes, mothers could bring their babies
Baseline trainings were designed to be short and flexible, and they were held in an existing backyard near the home of a volunteer community team leader. Because trainings were held near homes, mothers could bring their babies or leave them with nearby family members. This allowed mothers to move between training and caregiving, which made their participation possible.
Women learned to make botanical pesticides from neem and ash, to mulch their gardens using crop residues, and to intercrop vegetable for year-round production. Starter seeds that they obtained include fast-growing and indigenous vegetables such as amaranth, nakati, tomatoes, cabbages and eggplant. These crops yield easily, which motivates the women to continue farming.
The garden listens
Participants use small plots, often borrowed or negotiated within family compounds, because many young women live with their parents or the fathers of their children, who are also young and don’t own sufficient land themselves. This means that access depends on family consent, or on borrowing small plots along compound boundaries or small patches that had previously been unused or underutilised, as they were not prioritised for staple crops.
Over time, as gardens began producing vegetables, acceptance increased and access to backyards became more stable for young women. In some cases, the young women failed to secure their own plots but could partner with others to jointly cultivate small vegetable gardens.
What matters to our participants is not the size of the garden but ownership of the process. As one participant, Ruth Nantumbwe, put it: “This garden is mine. Even if it is small, it listens to my food and income issues.”
The results of the initiative are visible. Families that once relied on purchased vegetables began harvesting fresh produce. Participating families became food-secure or only mildly food-insecure compared to their situation before the initiative. Health improvements followed, with women reporting reduced stress and improved energy levels. Savings once spent on food were redirected towards school fees, health care and other household needs.
Shifting power dynamics
But the most profound changes were beyond food security. Income from surplus vegetable sales has brought a shift in power dynamics within households. For many young mothers, earning even a small, independent sum of money has reduced their economic dependence on men. This has had ripple effects on relationships, decision making and self-worth for young women.
“We no longer depend so much on our husbands for money,” one young mother shared during a reflection meeting. “There is more love in our homes now.” Several young women spoke openly about how access to income from gardening helped them avoid transactional relationships where young women fall into relationships for basic necessities or money. Access to food and income from backyard gardening reduced the need to rely on such strategies, lowering exposure to sexual exploitation and unintended pregnancies.
These changes contributed to a cultural shift in how women’s work is valued
We deployed several strategies that proved effective for the initiative. One factor of success was that we located gardens near homes, which made participation possible for young mothers with childcare responsibilities. Secondly, using locally available inputs such as compost made from household waste, crop residues, botanical pesticides prepared from neem leaves and ash, and mulching materials kept costs low and knowledge accessible. At an expense of approximately USD 30 per participating beneficiary, which includes costs for starter seed kits, elementary garden tools, training facilitation, follow-up garden visits, and financial management training, the initiative proved highly cost-effective.
Peer learning was another success factor. Participants formed informal networks to exchange knowledge, share challenges and mentor one another. Some women emerged as model gardener volunteers, supporting new participants and strengthening community ownership.
Cultural and land tenure challenges
However, the journey was not without challenges. Land insecurity remained a major constraint as some women living in rented houses could not secure small backyard plots of their own. Other young women were affected by prolonged droughts, which reduced yields despite water conservation efforts.
We also learned that not all households and spouses are immediately supportive. A few male partners initially dismissed backyard gardening as of less value. In response, our team engaged men through dialogue and demonstrations, which proved to be a critical turning point in the initiative. We organised informal conversations and community garden demonstrations where men could directly observe the productivity of the gardens and tangible benefits such as reduced household expenses on vegetables and improved family nutrition.
As results became visible, attitudes shifted in several households. Men moved from resistance to active support, including allowing continued access to land, water collection and recognising women’s contribution to household wellbeing. While these changes did not result in land ownership structures, they contributed to a cultural shift in how women’s work was valued.
It begins with dirt under fingernails
One major insight we gained from this initiative is that liberation does not always begin with large-scale interventions. Sometimes, it starts in the backyard with soil under fingernails and seeds saved in recycled containers. We also learned that young mothers are not passive victims of climate change or poverty. When given skills and minimal resources, they become innovators and leaders. The lived experience of adolescent mothers, especially, makes them deeply committed stewards of land and family wellbeing.
Looking to the future, our team plans to scale the women’s gardens model to reach more young women across Eastern Uganda. Priorities include expanding farming in small plots, strengthening savings, cooperative groups and deepening climate education. We also aim to document and share these testimonies more widely so that policies, funding decisions and development narratives recognise backyard gardening and small plot farming as a serious pathway to food sovereignty and women’s liberation.
For groups and communities seeking to replicate this work, our recommendations are clear:
- Centre young women and adolescent mothers as leaders, not as beneficiaries
- Promote low-cost agroecological practices rooted in local knowledge
- Invest in peer-to-peer learning and social support networks
In Eastern Uganda, these young women are doing more in their gardens than growing vegetables alone: they are growing freedom.
Author: Judith Ainembabazi (32) is a co-founder and the executive director of Agrovision She Farmers, a women-led organisation working in Eastern Uganda to advance women’s economic empowerment through agroecology, food security and climate-resilient livelihoods. Contact: programs@grovisionshefarmers.org
This article is part of Issue 4-2026: Youth leading the way in agroecology.
