For many years, farming was simply away for Mariam Salum to feed her family. Every planting season brought hope, but it also came with uncertainty. Limited financial resources meant she often planted late, used recycled seed, and relied on declining soil fertilitywithout knowing how to restore it naturally. As a result, harvests were often poor, leaving little surplus for sale after meeting her family's food needs.

Mariam's journey began to change after she joined the Tujikwamue SAT Saving and Lending Group (SSLG) in Bwage Village. Through regular savings, she gradually built financial discipline while becoming eligible to borrow from the group's revolving loan fund. The savings group became a place to save money, it became a source of confidence and opportunity.

At around the same time, Mariam participated in training organized by SAT through the SUCODE Project, where she learned practical organic agriculture techniques that were new to her. The training emphasized that healthy soils are the foundation of productive farming and introduced farmers to agroecological practices that protect the environment while improving yields.

Motivated by this new knowledge, Mariam applied for a loan through the Tujikwamue SSLG. The loan enabled her to prepare one acre of land on time, purchase quality maize seeds, hire labour for land preparation, and transport organic manure to her field. Without access to the loan, she believes many of these activities would have been delayed, reducing her chances of achieving a good harvest, Mariam carefully followed the organic farming practices she had learned. She incorporated compost and well-decomposed animal manure into the soil before planting, maintained proper spacing between plants, controlled weeds early, and regularly monitored the crop.

Today, her maize field stands as evidence of what can be achieved when knowledge is combined with access to finance, the expected harvest will help improve household food security by ensuring that her family has sufficient maize for consumption while generatingi ncome from surplus grain sales to use the proceeds to repay her SSLG loan, continue saving with the group, purchase additional farming tools, and invest in the next planting season without starting from zero.