Best Farmers 2025: Dem Commercial Farmers Ltd come second in Co-operatives seegmentt

VISION GROUP | HARVEST MONEY | BEST FARMERS | MITYANA

With the 120,000 birds at Dem Commercial Farmers ltd, one would expect them to have a big challenge with chicken droppings only to find out that it is being turned into fertiliser.

“In the beginning the droppings were one of the challenges creating discomfort with neighbours. They used to complain about the bad smell. This compelled us to find ways of managing the droppings, birthing a new enterprise,” explains Grace Natukunda, the farm operations manager.

Dem farm is seated on 70 acres in Kazinga-Kakindu village in Mityana district with 120,000-layer chickens generating over 12 tonnes of droppings a day. As the problem intensified, they started searching for ways to manage the waste until they learnt about turning it into manure. This not only maintains the hygiene of the farm but is also another revenue stream.

The farm is owned by Natukunda and her brother Edwin Muhereza, the executive director.

Fertiliser production

Edwin Muhereza explains that as they increased the number of chickens on the farm to 120,000 from 2,000 they started with. By 2020 the waste became more challenging that they had to rethink on how to make it useful.

He explains that they use agricultural lime poured in the trenches to prevent bad smell and easy cleaning of the houses. The chicken houses are cleaned every three days and waste is transported using a lorry to a plant where it is processed into fertiliser and is packaged in 50kg sacks. 

“From the 12 tonnes of fresh waste, we get seven tonnes of powdered fertiliser. Farmers growing bananas, coffee and vegetables buy the product,” he says.

In April 2025, the farm completed the first field tests with the Ministry of Agriculture, Animal Industry and Fisheries to get a certificate to sell the product on the open market.

The birth of Dem Farm

Natukunda, a teacher by profession, explains that, together with her brother Muhereza who is a lawyer, they looked for an alternative source of income and chose farming in 2009. 

The siblings started with crops like Irish potatoes, vegetables, maize and livestock that included broiler chicken and pigs. “The returns were not proportional to the investment of funds and time. We thus decided to zero down to layers and pigs,” she says.

They started in 2010 with 2,000-layers and had a goal of at least 100,000 birds in ten years which they successfully reached. They have surpassed that goal and have 120,000 layers and harvest 3,000 trays of eggs daily.

The farm has 10 chicken houses where the birds are kept based on age.

This is the tenth year running that Vision Group, together with the Embassy of the Netherlands, KLM Airlines, dfcu Bank and Koudijs Animal Nutrition, are running the Best Farmers competition. The 2025 competition run from March to November, culminating in today’s awards ceremony.