Assessment of the impacts of sugarcane growing on the wetlands ecosystem and the community :

Abstract

The research is about assessment of the impacts of sugarcane growing on wetlands ecosystem and the community, the case, of Ndese wetland, Kasawo Sub County, Mukono district. Sugarcane is a thirsty crop, consuming a great deal of water. Since many wetlands have been converted to agriculture, according to (NEMA, 2010), the speed of development is higher than that of conservation and this difference has implications on wetland sector appearing as though there is no effort towards wetland conservation. They can also be, defined as transitional lands between terrestrial and aquatic systems covered by shallow water. (National Wetlands Conservation and Management Program: republic Uganda). The increased demand for sugar both at national and international levels has forced many sugar factories to look for vast areas for growing sugar cane. This has led to increased exploitation of wetlands such as Ndese wetland that has led to loss of bio diversity, lives, flooding food insufficiencies in homes and other challenges. Therefore, there is need the community and the government at large to come up with strategies that promotes sustainable sugarcane growing as well as wetland conservation. The study composed of' a sample 65 respondents with the main objective assessing the impacts of' sugarcane growing on the wetlands ecosystem and the community. The researcher used questionnaires and interviews to gather information on sugar cane growing that involved interviewing. farmers, teachers, politicians and other groups in the study area. The data was analysed using SPSS software which included which involved computation of percentages and frequencies including pie charts and bar charts. The research found out that families within the study areas have experienced insufficient food challenges and hunger. This was due to increasing sugar cane growing in the areas with yet they have limited land as shown 86.6% of the respondents have less than or equal to 2 acres but use much of the land for sugar cane growing together with pests and diseases that affects various crops such as maize, beans, cassava, flooding of the wetland that destroys crops as 52.31 of the respondents have experienced flooding in the area. The findings from the study indicated most of the people around the wetland derive their livelihoods from the wetland to support their families. This therefore calls for government intervention through different ways to mitigate the impacts from these activities though the statistics indicate that 69.23% of the respondents argued that the government has not intervened in the conservation of the wetland. The findings of the- study reflected a positive relationship between the dependent and independent variables. Conclusions from the findings. indicates that, from the sex perspective, males were the major users of Ndese wetland in Kasawo Sub County as they covered 58.46% or the total sample taken compared to females of 41.54%. There was positive relationship between respondents' education level and pest control measures using the Pearson correlation shows that is the P value'(P 0.011 < 0.05). This means that the education level is significant in determining some one’s knowledge about the use of pest control measures. In terms of livelihoods this was expressed as most of the respondents had small pieces of land for which they gave part for growing sugarcane. This seemed to be a threat to the community in terms of food scarcity and hunger.