The first Farming 4 Life project officially started in Uganda in 2010 as a cooperation between Open Church in Denmark, and Victory Outreach Ministries (VOM) in Uganda. Later on, the Apostolic Church Mission (ACM) took over the cooperation on behalf of Open Church.

The Danish vision bearers Jens Silkjær and Maria Silkjær had seen the great need for empowerment and development of the rural communities in the northern part of Uganda and decided together with the local partner organization VOM that they wanted to create sustainable change and development in the communities. This is where F4L became a reality.

They started to lobby for funds and resources and got the first support from DMCDD (Danish Mission Council Development Department) for a pilot project in 2011.

In the beginning, the main aim of F4L Uganda was development through agriculture, using the methods called Farming Gods Way, but as time passed it was discovered that in order to teach people about agriculture, other issues like health, advocacy, teaching on finance, etc. were also necessary to address, if the project would have to be successful.

In 2015 Jens got in touch with a Togolese organization that also worked through ACM in Denmark. The organization, called TED (Togo Engaged in its Development) was interested in learning more about the Farming Gods Way methods and had, before they knew about F4L Uganda, sent three of their people to Uganda to get trained in the Farming Gods Way methods. As the Togolese returned home, Jens came to visit them in Togo to introduce them to Farming 4 Life. It was decided to establish an F4L project in Togo, in cooperation with TED. 

In 2016 an organization from Congo also started to gain interest in the work of F4L and they went for F4L training in Uganda.

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By having several project locations with the same goal of development, joining together, the idea of developing a common network started to grow more and more within all of us. As the Ugandan and Danish staff went to Togo in 2016 to share their knowledge and experiences, the idea started to develop more seriously. 

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Exchange continued as the Togolese in April and May 2017 went to visit and learn from F4L in Uganda. Later on, in 2017 the Congolese visited Uganda and other NGOs from Uganda, Sierra Leone, Guinea, and Zambia also showed interest in being a part of F4L. 

The idea of the network was brought to the F4L main sponsor DMCDD to get an opportunity to have funds for the establishment of the network. To work on the development of the network an international consultant, Elisabet Nørgaard Birindwa, was financed to facilitate conferences for the further development of the work. It was agreed by all projects that to form an actual network was a good idea.

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By coming up with the idea of the network we wanted to see how to best utilize the resources within F4L and similar projects and to get a better way to take advantage of all the different skills within the different projects in a more efficient way. It would also open up new opportunities of sharing knowledge, ideas, and experiences. The thought was, that having many projects joining together could raise strength and help lobby for more funds for our local organisations' work and in that way reach many more people. It would become easier to do exchange visits and to arrange workshops, teachings, and activities together and the different member organizations would be able to monitor and evaluate each other’s projects. This would improve the work in the local projects.

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Exchange visits had already been going on for a while, but through the network they are now enhanced, bringing visitors from in and out to the different projects.

The first conference for the establishment of the network was held in Kampala in September 2018. It was sponsored by DMCDD and facilitated by an international consultant.

Founding partners from Uganda, Togo, and Denmark plus a guest from Congo were invited to be a part of the planning.​

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The photo above shows the participants in the first international conference of F4L-IED.

F4L - IED is not just for F4L projects, but for all projects having similar goals of empowerment and development, wanting to get strengthened or share their strengths with others through a well-established network. 

We consist of many different organisations working under the same set of values, having the same common goal of seeing the poor being empowered and creating sustainable development in our local communities. 

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We are all convinced that the only way to create true and positive development is through giving people the knowledge and help they need to be able to help themselves.  ​