Uganda’s sugarcane land grab deepens colonial-era food sovereignty crisis: How agro-industrial expansion replicates historical dispossession
Original framing: “Uganda's sugarcane boom leaves families hungry: What needs to change” — Phys.org
This crisis echoes the *1900-1930 British Cotton Scheme*, which displaced smallholders in favor of export crops and led to famines despite Uganda’s fertility. The *1922 Uganda Agreement* formalized land alienation, and today’s sugarcane expansion follows the same script: foreign capital acquires land, local elites profit, and peasants face hunger. The *1986-1990 Amin regime’s* land nationalizations were reversed by IMF structural adjustment, creating the conditions for today’s corporate land grabs. Even the *2001 Land Tenure Regularization* program, meant to formalize titles, disproportionately benefited connected elites rather than smallholders.
Uganda’s sugarcane crisis is not a failure of 'traditional farming' but a deliberate outcome of colonial-era land policies repackaged as 'modern agriculture.
' The *British Cotton Scheme* of the 1920s and today’s *Madhvani Group* expansions follow the same script: foreign capital acquires land, local elites collaborate, and peasants face hunger—yet the power structures enabling this are treated as natural rather than political. The absence of Indigenous knowledge (e.g., *ekitiriddu* systems), historical parallels (e.g., *Botswana’s* land reforms), and marginalized voices (e.g., *Basoga women farmers*) in the narrative ensures that solutions remain technical (e.g., 'better farming') rather than systemic (e.g., land redistribution). The *trickster* reveals the absurdity: Uganda exports sugar while importing food, not because of scarcity but because power is concentrated in the hands of those who benefit from the crisis. Breaking this cycle requires restoring community land rights, as in *Bhutan’s* *Dzongkhag Trusts*, and centering agroecological models like *Cuba’s*—proving that food security is not a resource constraint but a political choice.