In an op-ed, Dr. Buregyeya highlighted that 60 percent of the onions and Irish potatoes consumed in Uganda originate from Kenya. The East African neighbor also supplies most of Uganda’s oranges, tangerines, mangoes, pears, and apples. Beyond fresh produce, markets are seeing rice from Tanzania, powdered milk from Europe, and even tomatoes trucked in from Nairobi.
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“What should concern us is not just the import bill. It is the story behind it,” Dr. Buregyeya stated. He noted that rural Uganda, historically the source of national nourishment, is now being fed by trucks from towns like Kampala, which supply basic staples such as rice, sugar, tomatoes, and maize flour to village markets.
Dr. Buregyeya differentiates between food security and food sovereignty, defining the latter as “the right of people to control their food systems — what they grow, how they grow it, and for whom.” He asserts that while a nation can achieve food security through imports, true food sovereignty requires the ability to feed oneself “with dignity and on its own terms,” a power he believes Uganda has lost.
A key factor in Kenya’s agricultural advantage, Dr. Buregyeya points out, is strategic state-led investment in irrigation infrastructure. Projects like Galana-Kulalu and Mwea-Tebere allow Kenyan farmers to produce crops year-round, even in drier conditions, enabling them to feed both their own population and regional neighbors. In contrast, less than 2 percent of Uganda’s arable land is irrigated, leaving farmers vulnerable to unpredictable weather patterns.
Uganda’s agricultural policy, Dr. Buregyeya argues, remains “trapped in a colonial mindset,” prioritizing export crops like coffee, tea, tobacco, and flowers for foreign exchange over domestic food crops. He illustrates this with coffee, Uganda’s primary export. In a £2.50 cup of coffee sold in the United Kingdom, the actual coffee bean accounts for only £0.10, with the grower earning just 1 penny.
“We are busy celebrating increased coffee tonnage while ignoring the 96 percent of the value chain we do not own,” he wrote, citing The Financial Times and the International Trade Centre (ITC). He contrasted this with Germany, which, despite growing no coffee, profits significantly more from the industry due to its control over processing, marketing, retail, and consumption culture.
Ethiopia offers a different model, consuming nearly 50 percent of its coffee domestically, which builds resilience for farmers against global price fluctuations. Uganda, conversely, exports over 90 percent of its coffee, creating a disconnect from its own growers.
Dr. Buregyeya identified several dynamics contributing to the rural food crisis:
- Land fragmentation: Much of Uganda’s land is underutilized or caught in inheritance disputes, or repurposed for speculative real estate.
- Youth flight from agriculture: Young people often seek faster returns in the informal urban economy, abandoning farming.
- Collapsed extension services: Farmers lack crucial training, pest control support, and modern agricultural practices.
- Middlemen dominance: Urban traders now control food systems from seeds to sales, effectively converting farmers into consumers.
He critiqued past government agricultural initiatives, including Entandikwa, the National Agricultural Advisory Services (NAADS), Operation Wealth Creation, and the current Parish Development Model, stating they “confuse activity for strategy.” These programs, he argued, distribute inputs without investing in critical infrastructure such as storage, roads, irrigation, and market access, treating agriculture as a charitable gesture rather than a national production system.
To regain food sovereignty, Dr. Buregyeya proposed state-driven structural reforms:
- Launching a national irrigation program.
- Rebuilding rural extension services and supporting agroecological education.
- Protecting arable land from speculative use and promoting community-based production.
- Shifting public spending to prioritize domestic food crops and indigenous nutrition.
- Reinforcing farmer cooperatives to counter urban trader monopolies.
- Treating food systems as national security infrastructure.
“Uganda is not poor. We are poorly organized,” Dr. Buregyeya concluded. “Every imported crate of tomatoes is a symbol of lost sovereignty. Every village that waits for city trucks is a mirror of our policy failure.” He emphasized that a nation unable to feed itself cannot truly govern itself, urging investment in local nourishment.
