Judith Bakirya

Content sourced from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

Judith Bakirya is a Ugandan permaculture farmer and the founder of Busaino Fruits & Trees. She was born in the Busoga region and grew up on a farm. She won a scholarship to Mt St Mary’s College Namagunga and later earned a master’s degree in health and development from the University of Birmingham in the United Kingdom. In 2000, she left her NGO job to return to farming, using savings and a small loan to start Busaino Fruits & Trees. In 2014, she won the Best Farmers award, which gave her the chance to exhibit at major shows in Uganda and the Netherlands. She opened an exhibition centre for traditional medicine and culture in Jinja. In 2017, she started the National Agro-Tourism Institute in Jinja to promote agro-tourism and education. Today she runs Busaino Fruits & Trees, an agro-heritage fruit farm of more than 1,000 acres, with a focus on sustainable farming and education. In 2019 she was named one of BBC’s 100 Women.