Emma Naluyima is a farmer, veterinarian, teacher and mother. The 43-year-old is a doer! Among other things, on her farm in eastern Uganda, she shows women from surrounding villages how successful agriculture can work.
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00:00 [MUSIC PLAYING]
00:03 [LAUGHTER]
00:06 My name is Nalima Emma.
00:07 I'm a vet by profession.
00:09 I'm a mother, a wife, a farmer, and an educator.
00:14 I'm 43 years old.
00:16 [MUSIC PLAYING]
00:19 Oh, we are in Bwerenga village, Wakiso District,
00:23 in Uganda, in East Africa.
00:25 [MUSIC PLAYING]
00:27 I started farming just to put food on my table.
00:29 But what I did, I did it so well that I had more
00:33 than I needed to eat.
00:34 Then I started selling.
00:36 So I became successful in that.
00:38 When I'm like, OK, wait a minute.
00:41 What if I pass on this knowledge to my community?
00:45 [MUSIC PLAYING]
00:48 Now you notice it's all clean.
00:50 But in other places, if it's not clean, it will be moldy.
00:53 Like now, you see?
00:55 That means the people who washed the trays--
00:57 It's not--
00:58 [YELLING]
01:00 --you planted.
01:01 No, no, ours.
01:02 [YELLING]
01:04 So we opened it to many people.
01:05 And I'm happy that I've been able to train
01:09 as many people as possible-- youth, women, children.
01:13 We've opened a school, MSC Junior School.
01:15 And the stories, it's so satisfying.
01:17 It's very satisfying when someone calls you saying,
01:21 I came to your farm.
01:22 You taught me this.
01:23 Now I have this.
01:24 But many people call back saying they
01:27 have food on their table.
01:28 And I'm proud of that.
01:29 [MUSIC PLAYING]
01:39 I love animals.
01:40 So I treat animals.
01:42 I listen to them.
01:44 I care for them.
01:46 Being a farmer is a noble job.
01:49 Because if, as a farmer, I don't keep my animals,
01:54 I don't keep the cows and get milk out of them,
01:57 I don't dig, I don't get vegetables and everything,
02:00 then you people won't be able to eat.
02:02 [MUSIC PLAYING]
02:10 No, actually, I'm not a teacher.
02:11 I'm not a teacher.
02:13 But in school, actually, in this school,
02:16 we do a lot of practicals.
02:17 So MSC Junior School is called Math, Science, and Technology.
02:23 Our vision is to make sure that every child taps each child's
02:27 potential through farming.
02:29 It's a normal school with a bias to agriculture.
02:31 So we use agriculture to teach.
02:33 Some few plants have twin systems,
02:36 like that plant over there.
02:37 Ah.
02:39 So we are not training them to become farmers.
02:43 But we're giving them skills.
02:45 Because farming makes you patient.
02:47 There's so much-- like a farmer, being a farmer is something
02:50 that, I don't know, there are so many skills there.
02:53 There's so many virtues there--
02:56 team building, responsibility.
02:59 They have this plant they're going to look after.
03:01 They have this chick they're looking after till the end.
03:03 [MUSIC PLAYING]
03:08 I see what we've gone through with the children,
03:11 the way we nurture them.
03:14 They're confident.
03:15 They touch.
03:16 They feel.
03:17 They understand.
03:18 [MUSIC PLAYING]
03:21 [INAUDIBLE]
03:25 If I had the powers, I'd make sure every school
03:30 is like my school.
03:30 [LAUGHS]
03:32 [MUSIC PLAYING]
03:37 I've achieved so many accolades and awards as a farmer--
03:43 things I'd never thought.
03:44 I was best farmer 2014.
03:46 When I gave birth to my last born, she's now four.
03:49 So I'd just come out of hospital.
03:51 Three days out of hospital, I receive a phone call
03:54 from President Obasanjo saying, wow, you
03:58 won the Africa Food Prize 2019.
04:00 And I'm like, oh.
04:02 So and this is something-- you know, it's not a competition.
04:04 You don't know they are watching you.
04:05 And you know, so it was something nice.
04:08 [MUSIC PLAYING]
04:12 [LAUGHTER]
04:16 [MUSIC PLAYING]
04:20 I believe in myself.
04:21 And I have this thing that--
04:25 sorry for men.
04:26 But what a man can do, a woman can do three times better.
04:30 [LAUGHS]
04:33 [MUSIC PLAYING]
04:36 (upbeat music)