Abstract:
The farm and community practice program is a course module and a requirement to attain a bachelor’s degree of science in ag 'culture at Busitema University was done from Soroti city council production office which is located in Kampswahili 3km from Soroti city. The period took a total of eight (8) weeks engaging in different activities at the production department under the direction and guidance of the city production officer, Dr Isaiah Odokorach. The work plan of the activities to be done was designed and arranged by the station supervisor together with the students during orientation in the first week of reporting. The activities were divided into three that is to say office, abattoir and field activities where students were divided into groups rotating from one section to the other on a weekly basis.
The office activities included welcoming and attending to clients, entering data into the computer system, organizing and arranging documents at the office, organizing and discussing the work plans, writing reports of the activities done and attending meetings at the departmental office. The abattoir activities were mainly done at the Soroti city abattoir and at Arapai cattle market every Thursday. The activities involved meat inspection doing both anti-mortem and post mortem inspection of animals for public health and the common cases were tape worm and liver fluke infestations, CBPP and Tuberculosis.
The field activities involved moving to the fields were a number of activities were done namely, poultry vaccination, data collection on agricultural input shops, seed germination tests, citrus planting and management.
However, many challenges were faced for example inadequate materials, long distance travels, harsh climatic conditions, lack of inputs, aggressive animals, delay in distribution of seeds among others.
Conclusively, despite the challenges faced during the community outreach period, the activities engaged in were done successfully as all the goals and objectives set for the farm and community practice were achieved. I however, recommend that the farm and community outreach program should be scheduled during the wet season were crop activities are many and more common.
