WorkingPapers No. 18 SOCIUM SFB 1342 - Jane Ayeko-Kümmeth Klaus Schlichte
←
→
Page content transcription
If your browser does not render page correctly, please read the page content below
SOCIUM SFB 1342
•
WorkingPapers No.18
Jane Ayeko-Kümmeth
Klaus Schlichte
The state on
the countryside:
Food security as
social policy
in UgandaJane Ayeko-Kümmeth, Klaus Schlichte The state on the countryside: Food security as social policy in Uganda SOCIUM SFB 1342 WorkingPapers, 18 Bremen: SOCIUM, SFB 1342, 2021 SOCIUM Forschungszentrum Ungleichheit und Sozialpolitik / Research Center on Inequality and Social Policy SFB 1342 Globale Entwicklungsdynamiken von Sozialpolitik / CRC 1342 Global Dynamics of Social Policy Postadresse / Postaddress: Postfach 33 04 40, D - 28334 Bremen Websites: https://www.socium.uni-bremen.de https://www.socialpolicydynamics.de [ISSN (Print) 2629-5733] [ISSN (Online) 2629-5741] Gefördert durch die Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) Projektnummer 374666841 – SFB 1342
Jane Ayeko-Kümmeth
Klaus Schlichte
The state on
the countryside:
Food security as social
policy in Uganda
SOCIUM • SFB 1342
No. 18
Jane Ayeko-Kümmeth (Jayeko-Kuemmeth@t-online.de),
University of Bayreuth
Klaus Schlichte (klaus.schlichte@uni-bremen.de), Institute of
Intercultural and International Studies & CRC 1342 “Global
Dynamics of Social Policy”, University of BremenAbstract
In many countries, the benefits of social policies are restricted to a minority of
urban wage earners. In Uganda, more than 70 percent of the population, how-
ever, currently live in rural areas, working on farms with no direct access to public
services other than basic health care or primary schools. In this paper, we intend
to look at the history of policies that have aimed to improve the livelihoods of
this rural majority—namely, food-security policy. We describe four major stages
of this policy in Uganda since early colonial times. During early colonial rule
(1900-1930), enforced monetization led to repeated food shortages and fam-
ines, which the colonial government answered with a granary policy. In a second
period during late colonial times and early independent statehood (1930-1970),
Uganda’s food situation remained tense, but more attention to the rural economy
allowed for partial gains in wealth and production. After a period of impover-
ishment due to turmoil and civil war (1971-1987), in the current fourth phase,
rural poverty and malnutrition have remained widespread in Uganda. Liberal
economic policies have led to enormous export growth but not to enhanced
food security. Food is exported and malnourishment persists. This paper is a first
attempt to track the development of food policy in Uganda, due to the lack of
studies on the politics around food in African contexts. We argue for a stronger
presence of the social question of the countryside both in international relations
and in political science as a whole.
[ii]Zusammenfassung
In vielen Ländern profitieren nur urbane Lohnempfänger von sozialpolitischen
Maßnahmen. In Uganda leben mehr als 70 Prozent der Bevölkerung jedoch
im ländlichen Raum. Als Kleinbauern haben sie keinen Zugang zu anderen So-
zialleistungen als zu Primärschulen und Basis-Gesundheitsdiensten. In diesem
Arbeitspapier betrachten wir die Geschichte der Politiken, mit denen die Lebens-
verhältnisse dieser ländlichen Mehrheit seit der Kolonialzeit verbessert werden
sollten. Im Mittelpunkt steht dabei die Frage der Ernährungssicherheit. Wir bes-
chreiben vier Phasen dieser Politik: In der frühen Kolonialzeit (1900-1930) verur-
sachte die erzwungene Monetarisierung zur Steuerzahlung wiederholt Nahrung-
smittelknappheiten und Hungersnöte. Darauf reagierte die Kolonialverwaltung
mit der Einrichtung von Speichern. In der zweiten Periode, der späten Kolonialzeit
und frühen Unabhängigkeitsphase (1930-1970), blieb die Ernährungssituation
in Uganda angespannt, aber mehr politische Aufmerksamkeit für die ländliche
Wirtschaft erlaubte wenigstens teilweise Zuwächse in der Produktion und Kap-
italbildung. Nach einer Phase der politischen Instabilität und des Bürgerkriegs
(1971-1987) begann die bis heute andauernde vierte Phase. Ländliche Armut
und Mangelernährung sind in Uganda immer noch weit verbreitet. Die seit den
1990ern praktizierte liberale Wirtschaftspolitik hat zu erheblichen Exportzu-
wächsen geführt, aber die Ernährungslage hat sich nicht grundsätzlich verändert.
Nahrungsmittel werden zwar exportiert, während Mangelernährung fortexistiert.
Dieses Arbeitspapier ist ein erster Versuch, die Entwicklung der Ernährungspolitik
in Uganda zu rekonstruieren, denn bisher mangelt es an Studien zur diesem Poli-
tikfeld auf dem afrikanischen Kontinent. Unser Beitrag soll deshalb auch zu einer
stärkeren Beschäftigung mit der sozialen Frage auf dem Lande in der Politikwis-
senschaft und in den Internationalen Beziehungen anregen.
SOCIUM • SFB 1342 WorkingPapers No. 18 [iii]Contents
1. Introduction ................................................................................................. 1
2. Early colonialism—The birth of a problem .......................................................... 4
3. Continuities: Late colonialism and early independence ........................................9
3.1 Excursus I: The story of the cooperative ...................................................... 13
4. Food-security policies under the NRM government since 1986 ...........................15
4.1 Excursus II: Operation Wealth Creation ...................................................... 19
5. Uganda’s food policies in the age of internationalized rule .......................... 22
References ......................................................................................................... 23
List of interviews and structured conversations ........................................................... 28
SOCIUM • SFB 1342 WorkingPapers No. 18 [v]1. Introduction cal experience (cf. Lang et al., 2001; Riches
& Silvasti, 2014). Yet food policy should be
an integral part of a truly global understand-
COVID-19 brought it to the fore: food is an ing of the dynamics of social policy.
essentially political topic in Uganda. As reg- That the food problem is a political phe-
ular trade was banned with the lockdown in nomenon more than a natural one has been
March 2020, vulnerable groups in Uganda repeatedly and prominently argued, for ex-
faced hunger. Very quickly, politicians vied ample by Amartya Sen, who hinted at the fun-
for reputation by distributing food packag- damental role of ownership and entitlement
es for free, until the government interdict- for access to food: “There is indeed no such
ed this and monopolized dishing out such thing as an apolitical food problem” (Sen,
packages. Three kilograms of beans and 6 1982: 459). However, not only are food se-
kilograms of maize flour were handed out curity and social protection closely linked (cf.
to vulnerable urban households, an act that Devereux, 2016), but food-security policies
critical observers interpreted as an opening overlap massively with agricultural policies
of campaigning: Uganda would hold presi- in general; this is because food policies are
dential elections in January 2021 (MacDon- framed in our present. As our case analy-
alds & Owor, 2020). sis will confirm, there are not only interest
This episode indicates three things. First groups, client and patronage patterns, ideo-
is a food paradox: although Uganda has fa- logical understandings, or electoral dynam-
vorable agricultural conditions, food security ics at work (cf. Joughin & Mette, 2010), but
is shaky for many of its people. Uganda is in the food question also is constituted by long
fact a food exporter, yet there is widespread historical continuities of colonial agriculture
under- and malnutrition in the country. With (cf. Kasozi, 1994: 40-48) and by the dynam-
this paradox, the country mirrors a global ics of regional and global food markets.
nutrition condition—there is actually enough The aim of this paper is to present a first
food available on the planet, yet about 9 sketch of the historical trajectory of food-se-
percent of the world population are under- curity policy1 in Uganda. As such, it is more
nourished, according to estimates from the descriptive than intensely analytical. The
UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization state of data and academic research on food
(FAO et al., 2020). policies in Uganda so far does not allow for
Second, the episode above indicates how strong causal claims, as information is scat-
political food is. As we will argue in this pa- tered. Policy-related papers of interested ac-
per, it is therefore necessary to go beyond
a mere technological understanding of the
food question and see food policies a con- 1 Food security is a term that gained currency with
the World Summit on Food Security in Rome,
tentious political field, like any other social
1996. Most scholars adapt the definition of the
policy. United Nations World Food Security, according to
Third, food policy is social policy, a truism which the term conveys the norm that “all people,
that is almost forgotten. While hunger and at all times, have physical, social, and economic
malnutrition were a serious problem in Eu- access to sufficient, safe, and nutritious food that
meets their food preferences and dietary needs
rope until World War II and in its aftermath,
for an active and healthy life.” In public and ac-
growing wealth and agricultural productivity ademic discourse, a variety of measures in the
have pushed the question of food security fields of agriculture, health, nutrition, trade, and
off the agenda of political science, due to its even education are considered to be part of food
Northwest Atlantic bias. Social policy analy- security policy. We therefore follow this practice
here and try to take into account all policies that
sis too, until recently, has been informed only
aimed at improving the nutritional situation in
by the European and Northamerican histori- Uganda in the periods under investigation.
SOCIUM • SFB 1342 WorkingPapers No. 18 [1]tors prevail, and numerical data is beset by A second section deals with the long peri-
validity and reliability problems (cf. Jerven, od of developmentalism. We see such strong
2013). This does not imply that a compre- continuities between the late colonial peri-
hensive causal reconstruction of origins and od and early Ugandan independence that
dynamics of food policies in Uganda is im- we put the decades of the 1940s through
possible, but it would be an enormous effort the 1970s in one section, a choice that runs
and is beyond the scope of the research car- counter to established periodization. These
ried out here. We restrict ourselves here to decades were marked by an expansion of
a descriptive aim, although we will interpret the colonial state and its economy, as well
what we see whenever sufficient evidence is as of formal social policy in Uganda, even
present. if only about 15 percent of the population
Our preliminary argument runs as follows: ultimately benefitted from pension schemes
the description of food policy, of its conti- or labor regulation. With the boom of farm-
nuities and changes, reveals the overlooked er cooperatives, however, at least modest
political nature of these policies in three con- wealth reached the countryside too.
secutive stages. All of them, we argue, are The third part of the paper deals with an
political, even though the food question has extended presence that set in after a peri-
often been rather presented as a “technical” od of turmoil, roughly from the early 1970s
or merely economic issue. This reduction to until the end of the 1980s. During this time,
technical and developmental aspects has various parts of Uganda experienced extend-
largely been a governmental perspective ed periods of political violence, interrupt-
since colonial times. Questions of food and ing many processes and impoverishing the
land as essentially political topics are largely country.
ignored in political science in general and When the National Resistance Movement
International Relations (IR) in particular. Our (NRM) conquered the capital Kampala at
general aim is thus to raise awareness of the the end of the year 1985, a new period of
topic of food security as a theme not just of internationalized rule began. We argue that
Ugandan domestic affairs and not only as a it was a forerunner of patterns that can be
form of social policy, but also as an instance observed in many places: a re-emerging
of the recent material turn in international state, incorporating old forms and structures,
political sociology (e.g. Mac Ginty, 2017; but molded as well by the prescriptions of
Biecker & Schlichte, 2021). international financial institutions supported
The paper roughly follows a chrono- by bilateral donors with conditional grants,
logical pattern. The first section describes integrated Uganda into world markets. Yet
food-security policies in the period of early the country remained dependent on the ex-
colonialism. We conceive the years from the port of primary goods and on labor remit-
1880s to the 1930s as a period in which tances of an increasingly mobile population.
the introduction of cash crops in combina- Internally, Uganda’s economy in the 1980s
tion with climatic conditions created novel consisted mainly of subsistence farming. This
dangers of food insecurity, including several agricultural structure has remained largely
famines. Colonial capitalism—in Uganda, unchanged, but it has run into crisis due to
mainly driven by the forceful introduction of population pressure and the encroachment
cash crops that could generate tax income of commercialized farming, i.e. the capital-
for the colonial administration—was the first ization of agriculture.
main context of food insecurity and ensuing Several other factors play into this prob-
policies. The main reaction to this was a pol- lem, apart from the longer historical process
icy of enforcing granaries at the village level. outlined so far. Food insecurity in contempo-
rary Uganda is partly also the consequence
[2]of political violence, as in the case of about responding to the size of Idaho or the former
one million war refugees from South Sudan West Germany; and with a current popula-
who have sought refuge in Uganda. Ever tion of 44 million people, Uganda reaches
more volatile climate conditions limit the cal- a population density of 180 persons per
culability of agriculture, as well. We take a square kilometer. Out of a GDP of 27 billion
closer look at the fate of the current regime’s USD, the Ugandan state is able to levy 13
food and agricultural policies. They were percent as recurrent revenue, a rate that is
originally conceived as a way to fight rural exceptionally low even in Sub-Saharan Af-
poverty, but ended up as arenas for garner- rica (cf. Schlichte, 2021; MOFPED, 2018:
ing support for the current regime in elector- 46).
al competition. Seventy percent of Uganda’s exports are
We used qualitative methods of data col- agricultural products, and more than 65
lection to build this description. The main percent of its workforce is engaged in ag-
method to generate primary data was face- riculture (UBOS, 2019: 35). This resem-
to-face interviews with purposively selected bles the economic structure of Prussia in the
respondents. Participants were drawn from mid-nineteenth century, both with regard to
sector institutions including the Ministry of employment and to the distribution of farm
Agriculture (MAAIF), agriculture officers at the sizes (cf. Wehler, 1995: 40-42).2 However,
district level, academics, politicians, NGO Uganda is embedded into a different global
representatives, and farmers or farmers’ rep- time and constellation. Most importantly, its
resentatives. We carried out interviews and social question, which can be seen as the
structured conversations with forty-four key cause and main referent of social policy, is
informants on social policy in general; and deeply globally embedded as well (cf. Piven
on health, education, and food security. & Cloward, 1967; Breman et al., 2019). In
On the other hand, a randomized sample Uganda, as in many other countries in Afri-
of interviews and conversations with Ugan- ca, Asia, and Latin America, social policy as
dans of different social status, regions, and understood in the established sense (pension
age groups was also added to this material systems, labor regulation, etc.) is provided
(see list in Appendix). This method proved only to a minority—namely, to the formal
helpful in developing an impression of what sector, which employs only about 15 percent
government schemes actually mean in every- of the nation’s workforce. This means in turn
day life. While the bulk of interviews and con- that about 85 percent of the national econo-
versations were carried out in Kampala, two my is informal,3 with considerable effects for
excursions—one into a western rural district the validity of numerical data about Ugan-
and one into an eastern rural district, were da’s economy and society.
undertaken in order to bring in non-capital
perspectives. These field stays took place in
the three months of November and Decem- 2 Uganda shares other features with Prussia of
ber 2018 (KS) and October 2019 (JAK, KS). 1850, including widespread absentee landlord-
Secondary literature, government publica- ism, mass migration into urban centers, informal
tions, national statistics, and press reports settlements, labor emigration, a vast sector of
low-paid and low-skilled workers, and a prepon-
supplement our material.
derance of patriarchic and quasi-feudal relation-
For readers not familiar with the social ships.
setting of Uganda, a few indications might 3 This distinction has to be made with caution, as
be helpful at this stage: Like a number of non-registered citizens are still taxed through indi-
Sub-Saharan African countries, Uganda is rect taxes and non-registered businesses become
objects of arbitrarily enforced taxation. In prac-
still a largely agrarian society. In a territory
tice, there is thus no neat distinction between a
of roughly 200,000 square kilometers, cor- formal and an informal Ugandan economy.
SOCIUM • SFB 1342 WorkingPapers No. 18 [3]Officially, primary education and health the Middle East, which has become a ma-
services are offered freely, but in practice, jor target zone for young Ugandans to work
schools and health facilities are most often in low-skilled jobs in Jordan, Saudi Arabia,
understaffed, overpopulated, and demand etc., often under scandalous conditions (cf.
side payments. There has therefore been Gahigi, 2019).
a blossoming both of private schools and With a rural majority and agriculture as its
health services, of which the better ones are main occupational sector, small-scale farm-
available only to the affluent parts of the ur- ing has been both the fallback option and
ban population. an elastic retreat option in times of political
The vast majority of Ugandans is eco- crisis throughout the often unstable and inse-
nomically active in small-scale subsistence cure post-independence history of Uganda.
farming, with farm sizes between two and five With a growing population and an emerg-
acres.4 Due to heavy migration toward urban ing land crisis, the rural social question (cf.
centers, the rural population also maintains Veit et al., 2017) has gained prominence in
intense but mostly informal relations with Uganda, a country of which it was formerly
the urban economy. Temporary occupation, said that it had neither a food nor a land
part-time employment, or self-organized ac- shortage problem (Jameson, 1970).
tivity in the informal sector, predominantly Notably, Uganda has been an exporter
trade, are the norm for the majority of the of agricultural products since colonial times,
urban population. Formal definitions of un- and is still considered by many to be the food
employment do not make sense in such a basket of East Africa. Uganda’s exports have
setting (UBOS, 2017: 29). Ugandan society indeed incorporated a growing proportion
differs from European ones demographical- of food crops such as sugar, maize, rice,
ly, as well: 50 percent of its population of 44 and beans. According to World Bank statis-
million is younger than 18 years, with an- tics, the four neighboring countries—Kenya,
nual population growth of about 3 percent. Rwanda, the Democratic Republic of the
This growth weighs on all public policies, Congo, and South Sudan—received almost
yet Uganda has seen an increase in life ex- half of Uganda’s exports in 2018, mostly
pectancy by fifteen years between 1990 and consisting of food crops and non-processed
2015 (UBOS, 2017: 33). coffee (World Bank, 2021). This develop-
Uganda’s agricultural output, however, ment stands in a paradoxical relation to the
with its growth rate of 1,5 per cent has contin- fact that Uganda has considerable food-se-
uously lagged behind population growth of curity issues at the same time. In this regard,
3,5 per cent (cf. World Bank, 2017). Exports Uganda mirrors the global food situation:
amount to 3 billion USD per year, of which there is enough, yet a great number of peo-
coffee, tea, tobacco, and cotton together ple are malnourished.
constitute 750 million USD per year. In addi-
tion to that, over the last years, Uganda has
become a major food exporter to neighbor-
ing South Sudan, Rwanda, and Kenya. There 2. Early colonialism —The birth of
are furthermore about 1.2 billion USD of a problem
labor remittances from Europe, the US, and
4 One acre is about 4,000 square meters. Thus, There is no reliable data on the nutrition situ-
two and a half acres correspond to one hectare ation in what is now Uganda prior to coloni-
(100 x 100 m). The average size of farms in Ger- zation. It is reasonable to assume, however,
many is 60 ha, in Switzerland 20 ha. Uganda’s
that climatic conditions and warfare between
climate, however, often allows for three harvests
a year. the rivaling kingdoms in the Great Lakes re-
[4]gion have caused massive shortages of food As the colonial administration did not
time and again. During colonial rule, a food see Uganda as a “white man’s land,” it was
insecurity effect set in rather quickly due to committed to policy of development by na-
the rivalry between food- and cash-crop pro- tive agency, and emphasis was laid on the
ductions. As in other cash-crop colonies (cf. small peasant holding system under Euro-
Amin, 1972), food production suffered from pean supervision (Parker, 1952: 126). Un-
the incentives and coercion that favored the like Kenya, which had a group of European
production of cotton, through which a suf- settlers engaged in agriculture, the colonial
ficient tax base for the colonial administra- leadership in Uganda was not involved in the
tion was created (cf. Ouedraogo & Schlichte, sector until 1931. At that time, only some
2021). With a hut tax and later a poll tax im- 106 European settlers were engaged in ag-
posed on any male adult in colonial Uganda, riculture, with the number declining in later
the colonial administration left farmers only years.
the choice between wage labor or market One decisive precedent for this form of
production. This monetization was enforced integration into the empire was the Buganda
to the detriment of food-crop production, an Agreement of 1900. According to this treaty,
effect that was felt quickly. Britain became the protecting power for the
A second effect resulted from the grow- kingdom of Buganda, while at the same time
ing dependency on international price lev- a new land policy was introduced: The king
els. The market prices of products like cof- and a large number of Bugandan nobility
fee, cotton, tea, and tobacco depended on were registered as owners of square miles of
global trends (Bank of Uganda, 1970: 7). land (mailo) on which dependent peasants in-
Among the British colonies, Uganda became creasingly produced for local, later imperial,
a leading producer of cotton, but unlike its and then global markets. With this co-opta-
neighbor Kenya, Uganda was described as tion, the British created a stable alliance with
a planter’s and not settler’s colony. Its de- local interest. At the time, this was still in line
velopment would be left to the “natives”, as with the semi-feudal and aristocratic cultures
colonial language put it, as there were only in the metropole, but it also entrenched an
very few European plantations, and those oligarchy of individualized landowners set
exclusively cultivated tea. This world mar- free from earlier communal ties (cf. Low,
ket orientation, first formed under imperial 1971: 42-45). This constellation endoge-
premises, reduced attention to food produc- nized the social conflict that arose around
tion and made the colonial state’s leverage the land question, with the consequence that
dependent on this outward-oriented econo- colonial rulers where not held responsible for
my and its interest groups. It also meant that the processes they triggered.
price volatility for cash crops could affect Commercial agriculture was mainly car-
food consumption. ried out by Ugandan cash-crop peasants. It
Four such interest groups emerged first was not meant to enrich them, although the
around the production of cotton: traders and colonial government was keen to promote
merchants, planters, cotton-ginners, and production in alliance with other interests
cotton-buying middlemen (Vincent, 1989: in the empire. Cotton was the first priority,
155). At first, mutual interests outweighed quickly booming due to strong demand from
nationality and race and all belonged to the the British textile industry.
Uganda Chamber of Commerce (UCC), Only in the 1950s did coffee became
formed in May 1905 to represent the gen- more important in export value. Since then,
eral interest of the commercial sector to the it has remained the single most important ex-
government (Vincent, 1989: 155-157).
SOCIUM • SFB 1342 WorkingPapers No. 18 [5]port good,5 even of the independent state, lonial rule was instead that of a conserva-
and even though tea and tobacco came on tive arbiter between different power factions,
board a little later (Vincent, 1989; Parker, favoring in particular the kingdoms as allies
1952: 127). Cultivation of these crops was in the new colonial arrangement. In all four
regionally clustered, bearing in mind the of the traditional kingdoms of the protector-
ecological settings of the protectorate’s re- ate, individualized land property rights were
gions. Tea, for example, was mainly grown introduced, called “freehold tenure.” The
in the Nile region, i.e. in parts of Bugan- eastern and northern parts of Uganda main-
da—Njeru and Jinja and in the highlands tained communal forms of land use during
of Western Uganda. Cotton production was colonial times, although legally, all land
mainly limited to northern and northeastern was declared the ultimate possession of the
Uganda. Coffee has remained the dominant Crown. The paternalist ideal of colonial rule
cash crop in central, mid-eastern, and west- connected to this legal basis was to allow
ern Uganda. The early colonial period can for a continuity of rural livelihoods extended
thus be considered a structuring period, as it by a level of market-oriented production by
reflected a historical conjuncture of conflic- Ugandan farmers (cf. Ehrlich, 1963).
tive local and imperial interests. Soon, it became obvious that these legal
The stated goals of the Department of settings were superseded by the formation
Agriculture, created in 1908, were to ensure of interest, including that of Ugandan pro-
basic food supply, to conserve national re- ducers. By 1911, the Uganda Chamber of
sources, improve the quality of export crops, Commerce (UCC) —a nationwide umbrella
and to “blend the whole into a sound system organization for the private sector without
of agriculture,” a set of goals that could be any disctinction along colonial groups—
found in declarations of the department as no longer served the needs of the Europe-
it was renamed a Ministry in 1971 (Nelson an population adequately. Its numbers had
& Kazungu, 1973: 16). While the space of been swollen by an influx of new planters,
what was to become the Ugandan protec- the economy had diversified, and commer-
torate had known food-security measures cial competition took on ethnic dimensions.
like village granaries, in areas like Teso, Europeans, for example, formed the Ugan-
Karamoja, and western Uganda, cattle were da Planters Association, and Asians formed
viewed as a sort of insurance and capital the Indian Association. When the export of
stock for periods of strain with minimal or no cotton began to dominate the economy after
meat consumption.6 Cattle herds served as World War I, the Uganda Cotton Growers
protection against food insecurity. Association (UCGA) came into existence to
For a number of reasons, the coloniza- operate independently of both the UCC and
tion of Uganda was not undertaken with the the ethnic associations. “It proved to be an
aim of a radical modernization, as histori- effective lobby on the colonial government,
ans have stated (cf. Thompson, 2003: 25- not least because of its metropolitan con-
28). Beyond the aim of creating an economy nections with the Manchester Chamber of
from which the costs of colonial rule could Commerce” (Vincent, 1989: 158). The year
be extracted, the political vision of early co- 1920, when investment in Uganda amount-
ed to between $650,000 and $1 million,
5 The picture looks different if we consider human was the critical juncture in the struggle be-
labor a commodity. According to the Bank of tween administrative and commercial forces.
Uganda, annual labor remittances amount to By this time the commercial sector, domi-
1.2 billion USD (Barigaba, 2019), which is three nated by the mainly African cotton growers’
times the value of annual coffee exports.
association, was substantially influencing the
6 Interview (KS) with social science lecturer, Maker-
ere University, November 2019.
[6]colonial government and affecting legisla- opment was most often the increased need
tion (Vincent, 2018: 158). for labor force in almost all colonial econo-
In a number of districts, famines and mies, as is documented for Uganda, too (cf.
hunger re-occurred again and again be- Hailey, 1938: 530). The maintenance of a
fore 1918 for various reasons. For example, sufficient labor force caused food-security
Bunyoro, devastated during a war of colo- interventions (Veit et al., 2017).7
nial conquest (1893-4), experienced fam- It was during early colonial rule that food
ines in 1902, 1904-5, 1910-11, 1914 and security became a political issue, even if this
1917-18 (Doyle 2006: 142). A weakened terminology was not yet used (cf. Hailey,
local society could not cope with epidemics 1938: 1653). Food shortages were often
of sleeping sickness, drought, or excessive connected with allusions to allegedly worse
rainfall. Food production that was already conditions in precolonial times. Such con-
low became insufficient in such instances. ventional colonial wisdom “discharged the
Famine also occurred between 1917 and colonial state of responsibility for the prob-
1919 in Teso District, a region in which cot- lem and eliminated the need to review co-
ton had increasingly been cultivated. As this lonial economic policies” (Little, 1991: 12).
affected a core production zone for cotton, Malnutrition became persistent in the 1920s
the colonial district administration obliged (Iliffe, 1987: 143, 159). Why was that so?
all farms to deliver storable food for a cen- There is no historiographical work on this
tralized granary system. Cassava, being least question, and health and food production
sensitive against drought and locust incur- statistics did not exist in Uganda prior to
sions, was favored, and noncompliance was World War II. Yet one might assume that food
sanctioned with fines or forced labor. In the production was crisis-stricken because of two
late 1920s, food security was achieved by massive changes: First, production patterns
obliging farmers to reserve at least a quarter changed with the enforced taxation. Even
acre for food crops (Vail, 1972: 108). Gen- for average farmers, cash-crop production
erally, the local cultivation and local storage became an option to obtain the necessary
of famine food was encouraged; this was cash sum to avoid arrest or corporal punish-
usually cassava or sweet potatoes, a high- ment. The alternative was the second reason
yield and easily cultivated carbohydrate-rich for change: labor migration. Wage labor
plant (Little, 1991: 12). The colonial admin- was offered either in the few emerging sugar
istration, however, had no overall evidence plantations or in the urban colonial econ-
about the health and nutrition situation of omy. With labor migration and changes in
the population. Only the situation of prison- the agricultural division of labor (cf. Middle-
ers, workers etc. was known. Medical offi- ton, 1971), an even greater burden was put
cers were few in number and could only do on women in cultivation and impeding the
supervisory work, lacking knowledge about extension of acreage, as bush clearing was
the situation in the mass of villages (Little, male work. Evidence for this mechanism ex-
1991: 12). ists in the case of the West Nile, a district that
The colonial administration became able
to cope with famines only around 1920, as
7 The effect of Ugandan war participation in WWI
communication and infrastructure for a long
can also not be excluded. About 7,000 Ugan-
time did not allow quick transport of food dans joined the King’s African Rifles between
into affected areas. During the 1920s, how- 1914 and 1918, and more than 140,000 Ugan-
ever, famines causing great mortality ceased dans served as porters during the military cam-
in British colonial Africa (Iliffe, 1987: 158), paigns (UNA, n. d.). The provision of services for
war veterans and the increase in infrastructure for
seemingly also due to the introduction of lo-
war efforts might have provided avenues for the
cal granaries. The background of this devel- expansion of public services.
SOCIUM • SFB 1342 WorkingPapers No. 18 [7]became a kind of internal labor reserve with- calized dietary standard, based on Europe-
in the Protectorate of Uganda. Here, male an food consumption patterns, became the
labor migration caused renewed famine in yardstick for evaluating African food con-
the 1940s. The problem was noted by a co- sumption. Since then, the lack of protein and
lonial agriculture officer in 1943, who saw vitamins has been a constant feature in the
“the insatiable appetite of the armed forces scientific evaluation of diet in African coun-
and the continued exploitation of manpow- tries (Little, 1991: 12).
er for cheap plantation labor” (quoted after The colonial policy to achieve food secu-
Leopold, 2003: 78) as the root causes of rity by favoring subsistence farming and lo-
stagnating or regressing food production. In cal storage instead of market-oriented pro-
Karamoja district, food security deteriorated duction might have had its rationality, given
during colonial rule due to territorial chang- the rudimentary infrastructure and ensuing
es that barred pastoralists from access to high costs to transport food to places of con-
pastures, which resulted in overgrazing and sumption. It met criticism in the late colonial
long-term destruction of livelihoods (Mam- period, however. Examples from Ghana and
dani, 1982; Gartrell, 1985). India were reported to have shown that re-
The issue of nutrition, as it was labeled, course to market solutions had led to more
had threefold relevance. First, famines would specialization and increased productivity in
destabilize colonial rule from within and agriculture (Vail, 1972: 111). The East Afri-
would induce farmers to rebound to food- can Royal Commission uttered the same crit-
crop cultivation, to the detriment of cash icism in its report from 1953-55 (Uchendu &
crops (Vail, 1972: 108). Second, in order Anthony, 1975: 34).
to maintain a stable and healthy workforce, The Second World War can be considered
stable food production became a require- a watershed event in the history of colonial-
ment for the colonial economy. Third, critical ism in Uganda. The return of about seven-
observation of colonial practice and even ty thousand Ugandans from the battlefields
paternalist self-observation of the colonial in Southeast Asia triggered a lot of colonial
administration turned famine potentially social policy activity. The infrastructure of a
scandalous, in particular as the terminology national banking system via post offices was
of a protectorate connoted a moral obliga- created; new vocational schools emerged;
tion to secure the safety of colonial subjects and coinciding with a row of strikes in the
(e.g. Buell, 1928; Dimier, 2004). Among capital in 1945, the colonial administration
others, the League of Nations had set stan- became fully aware of the need to reform. It
dards about nutrition that the British colonial was during the period of Andrew Cohen act-
administration could not ignore (cf. Cépède, ing as governor from 1952 to 1957 that the
1984; Little, 1991).8 The British themselves most important changes took place also with
finally undertook a nutritional survey in de- regard to agricultural and therefore food
pendencies in 1936 (Little, 1991: 12). This policies (cf. Cohen, 1959).
also meant that the introduction of a delo- Change had set in, however, before more
active policies of development began. Leg-
8 Interest was involved here as well, it seems: Stan- islative councils in the protectorate included
ley Melbourne Bruce, prime minister of Austra- “Asians” as early as 1921, and Africans were
9
lia in the 1920s, promoted nutrition standard admitted to these councils only in 1945. The
setting, expecting a positive effect for Australia’s kingdoms with their councils had been pow-
exports (cf. Cépède, 1984: 283). Canada, New
Zealand, and Argentina all supported his move,
being large food exporters themselves (Little, 9 In everyday parlance in East Africa, descendents
1991: 11). from South Asian immigrants are often still called
‚Asians’ or „Wahindi“.
[8]erful negotiators with the colonial state all tion in colonial Uganda was furthermore
the time, in particular Buganda. underlined as leftist political parties brought
Contemporaries in the British imperial the issue of poverty and exploitation in the
public believed that economic problems in colonies to the metropolitan agenda (cf. But-
colonies were the root of outbreaks of un- ler, 1999; Lee, 1967). The Fabian Society in
rest in colonies in the late 1930s, as had Britain and the Popular Front government in
happened in Jamaica, Palestine, the Gold France created a different perception of the
Coast, Nigeria, Trinidad, and Northern Rho- social question in the colonies as a whole.
desia (Constantine, 1984: 229). A royal The third era of colonial rule is an era of
commission that investigated the so-called development. It is partly an outcome of this
“riots” in the West Indies had come up with change, in addition to its international pivots
the recommendation of increased welfare (Rist, 1997; Büschel & Speich, 2009).
spending (Wicker, 1958: 181). The Colonial We follow here an approach that rather
Development and Welfare Act of 1940 was underlines the continuities between late co-
a response to these—from an imperial per- lonial rule and the early independence peri-
spective—critical tendencies. This change od (cf. Schlichte, 2021). While the change
coincided with new attention at the interna- of political system, the achievement of sov-
tional level to the question of food and rural ereignty, and the quickly progressing “Afri-
poverty in the early 1940s (cf. Robins, 2018; canization” of administrative staff of course
Bonnecase, 2009), culminating in the foun- mark a sea change in international politics
dation of the Food and Agriculture Organi- and in the entire framing of politics on the
zation in 1945 as part of the United Nations African continent, we argue that with regard
system (cf. Wolkenhauer, 2021). to social policy, including the food/agricul-
ture nexus, continuities prevailed, even if ser-
vices and spending were massively expand-
3. Continuities: Late colonialism ed in the first decade of independence. This
and early independence section tries to demonstrate this with regard
to statements in policy papers and program-
matic declarations of both colonial and post-
During the sixty-seven years of its existence, colonial governments. Continuous percep-
colonial Uganda moved through three tions of the food situation in Uganda shined
phases in the development of its agrarian through here. This also applies to the emer-
policy. Each reflected sequential response gence and development of cooperatives in
to the way agrarian capitalism was devel- the agricultural sector that we will describe in
oping. In its formative phase (1895-1930), an excursus (3.1).
the colonial state had begun to transform In the case of Uganda, continuity between
non-capitalist African subjects into individual the late colonial state and the early indepen-
landowners, market-oriented producers, or dent state concerns not only the territorial
wage earners. Then it embarked on a phase shape, the internal administrative division,
of consolidation and retrenchment, as na- and apparatus but also economic structures
scent class differences were emerging (Vin- and political styles (cf. Glasman & Schlichte,
cent, 1989: 159-160). The “social question” 2021): Like the “progressive” Governor An-
in the colonies came to the forefront in the drew Cohen, in office from 1952 to 1957,
1930s, and the colonial state had to find an independent Uganda’s heads of state have
answer to conflicts that resulted from social considered themselves to be enlightened, su-
differentiation and newly organized political preme arbiters that can do without political
actors. Like in other African settings (cf. Coo- competition by relying on a functional state
per, 1996; Eckert, 2019), the social ques- apparatus only (Thompson, 2003: 347).
SOCIUM • SFB 1342 WorkingPapers No. 18 [9]The bilateral relation to the colonial power died before reaching the age of fifteen (quot-
was supplemented by international organi- ed after Elkan, 1961: 10).
zations. Since 1962, when Uganda gained The continuity stated above comes to
independence, the World Bank and later the the fore in a similar policy statement of the
International Monetary Fund increasingly as- young independent Ugandan republic of
sumed the function of financial supervisors 1963: “The main aims of the Department
of the Ugandan government, overtaking this were: (i) to ensure adequate supplies of the
function from the Colonial Office. So, from foodstuffs which can be efficiently produced
1962 onwards at the latest, national food under local conditions …” (Uganda Govern-
and agricultural policies cannot be consid- ment, 1963: 1). The production and quali-
ered independently from international policy ty of cash crops appeared only as the third
discussions. The international replaced the goal in this policy statement.
imperial. Food insecurity and even famine were
Nutrition standards also became an inter- not absent in late colonialism or early in-
national issue in the context of World War dependence. Iteso farmers, for example,
II.10 From that time onwards, food—not yet had accepted drought or locust infestation
framed as food security—was considered as causes of food shortages and even fam-
both an economic question with regard ine, forces over which they had limited or no
to the import and export of food and as a control. New technical equipment somewhat
health issue. Consequently, food and ag- reduced the damage brought by locusts. In
ricultural policies in Uganda of the 1950s addition to that, the diversification of staple
were put into that same framing. The annual crops was intended to be used as a strategy
report of the Department of Agriculture for to avoid famine (Uchendu & Anthony, 1975:
1957, for example, placed food security as 34).
the first aim of the policy, namely “to encour- While FAO representatives saw an import-
age the maximum production of suitable ant cause of food insecurity in the negligence
economic crops for export or for local use,” of small-scale food producers, the colonial
as well as “to ensure that the cultivators pro- administration had another interpretation
duce sufficient food for themselves and for that is very much in line with the overall pa-
the consuming public, of a type and quality ternalist attitude of the colonial government
to meet their dietetic needs” (Uganda Pro- (cf. Ehrlich, 1963): The attitude of a former
tectorate, 1958: 1). The same report states colonial agricultural economist was typical
that “supplies of food were adequate in all here when he contradicted FAO judgements
areas and the few shortages which occurred about the food situation in Africa. He argued
were easily made good by sales of food from that Uganda had a sufficiently productive
more favorable areas and by purchase of agriculture and that caloric-protein deficien-
maize mal through trade channels” (Ugan- cies were largely due to “the ignorance of
da Protectorate, 1958: 3). The need for this consumers” (Cleave, 1968: 84). Earlier co-
was apparent to the colonial power-holders lonial reports shared this viewpoint that atti-
as well: The East African Royal Commission tudes were lagging behind:
estimated in the mid-1950s that only 12 per-
cent of the population exceeded the age of “It is a fallacy to assume that the desire for
forty-five and that nearly half of all children money operates as an incentive in such con-
ditions to anything like the same extent as it
10 It is still an open question to what extent the “war operates in territories where a cash economy
effort” of Uganda, the withdrawal of a tenth of has been built up over centuries;…” (Wat-
the male workforce, and the intensified produc- son, 1954: 30)
tion had repercussions on the nutrition situation
in Uganda and elsewhere in colonial empires.
[10]“The incentive therefore for the majority of atile world market price levels for exported
farmers to increase their cash income is limit- agricultural products, which were out of the
ed; leisure and time for social intercourse (in- government’s control. The growth of the
cluding drinking parties) are more valuable GDP in 1969 by 12.5 percent, for example,
to them than money after their limited cash was mainly due to a catastrophic coffee har-
wants have been met.” (Watson, 1954: 31) vest in Brazil, leading to a sharp rise in coffee
prices on the world market (Bank of Uganda,
At the same time, the changed intra-im- 1970: 7).
perial and international attitude toward food Milton Obote, the first prime minister and
and agriculture also had real effects on the later president of independent Uganda, ruled
policy level: The colonial government set over a country in which life expectancies hov-
up regional agricultural research colleges ered around forty-five years, with few public
in Arapai, Bukalasa, Busitema, and Ssese. medical services and few secondary schools
Each of the colleges started to conduct re- beyond those run by the churches, and with
search on regional crops and ecological an economy consisting of two-thirds of hu-
factors. This scientization of food policy (cf. man traction–based agriculture. However,
Ouedraogo & Schlichte, 2021) went hand the new regime radicalized the modernist
in hand with other forms of “outreach” to policies of its colonial predecessor.
small-scale farmers. In the Report of the Ag- The first Five-Year Development Plan of
ricultural Productivity Committee of 1954, the independent state (1961-1965) was pre-
more access to loans, demonstration farms, mised on a World Bank mission report, di-
enlarged extension services of consultants, rected by the Harvard economist Edward S.
and the creation of central buffer stocks were Mason. The plan put agriculture center stage,
recommended in order to improve the food but it did not suggest to change production
situation in Uganda (Watson, 1954: 52, 94). patterns massively (Obwona et al., 2014: 4).
In 1962, agricultural research colleges, Instead, with the expansion of public service
however, suffered from a shortage of ap- and the massive investment in public educa-
plicants as other professions seemed more tion and health, spending soared in order to
attractive to the still small number of second- care for the quickly growing population of
ary-school leavers. This forced the govern- eight million in 1968.
ment to invite some three thousand farmers A second development plan (1966-1971)
to attend two-week courses in the five district provided a series of measures to revive the
farm institutes (Uganda Government, 1963: economy, most of them predicated on a
3). This pattern of educating a staff of con- turnaround in export crops. These measures
sultants, working later on district levels, and included, among others, higher prices to
inviting farmers for short-term teaching has farmers through a series of devaluations of
remained a practice throughout the history the local currency. Farm prices plummeted
of independent Uganda up until the present, to a fraction of their value at the start of the
only interrupted by periods of massive politi- decade, at a time when external prices fairly
cal violence or state decay. held their own (up to the late 1970s), thus
Independent Uganda also continued to the transfer of resources from the agricul-
depend strongly on world market prices for tural sector.11 In the face of monopolizing
a few exported agricultural products, among
which coffee has remained the single most 11 Daily Monitor (July 15, 2018). Obote attempts
important. The tradeoff situation between to revive the collapsing economy. https://
cash- and food-crop productions thus con- www.monitor.co.ug/Magazines/PeoplePow-
er/Obote-attempts-rescue-collapsing-econo-
tinued and made food production and con-
my/689844-4662950-kfgeq3/index.html ac-
sumption to some extent dependent on vol- cessed 12.12.2019.
SOCIUM • SFB 1342 WorkingPapers No. 18 [11]state marketing boards, farmers increasingly dencies under Amin has remained a histo-
smuggled cash crops to neighboring coun- riographic challenge. There is still no serious
tries or simply stopped growing them. Exports work on the real situation of the 11.5 million
fell to one-third of their levels at the begin- Ugandans (1975), of which 90 percent lived
ning of the decade, and that, in an economy on the countryside (Schultheis, 1975: 5).
always dependent on its export sector, final- Nevertheless, some major shifts became
ly ground down all productive activities.12 visible. Two years after the coup d'état, eco-
Massive malnutrition or famine, in any case, nomic output and administrative capacities
does not feature prominently in the literature sharply declined, not the least because of
of the time. Instead, improving the standards the expulsion of around eighty thousand
of farming was presented as the only prob- Asians, many of them Ugandan citizens
lem of Uganda’s agriculture by the leading and third-generation immigrants. The loss
experts, most still former colonial agricultural of expertise in the economy but also in ad-
officers (cf. Jameson, 1970). ministrative and technical fields, combined
Internally, inflation generally increased with the oil crisis and deteriorating domes-
during the 1960s while prices for crops de- tic security, triggered a downward spiral that
creased, thus demotivating farmers. This re- ended for a short period with the disposal of
sulted in low volumes of export commodi- Amin in 1979 by Ugandan exiles and Tan-
ty production and a decline in per capita zania’s army (cf. Hansen, 2013). By the end
food production and consumption (Byrnes, of Amin’s rule, Uganda’s manufacturing pro-
1990: 110). The “Move to the Left” effort, duction level was down to almost zero (Ob-
by which the Obote government tried to wona et al., 2014: 7). During this period, as
steer the country in another direction, came a coping mechanism, peasants scaled down
too late, and the coup d’état by General Idi cash-crop production and turned to growing
Amin ended Obote’s rule in early 1971. Po- food crops, with the assumed effect of “lit-
litical insecurity in the 1970s, coupled with tle malnutrition” (Hansen, 2013: 98; Nyeko,
mismanagement and a lack of adequate 1998).
resources, negatively impacted the incomes By 1980, production levels were lower
from commercial agriculture. than during the 1960s. The situation was
Due to the lack of any reliable data, the made worse by the declining state of road
food situation in Uganda during the 1970s is infrastructure, which made it difficult to mar-
difficult to ascertain. A persistent reason for ket and transport produce (Byrnes, 1990:
these difficulties is that the non-monetarized 110). While, in relative terms, agriculture
subsistence food production is not measured, remained the highest income earner, gener-
as it does not enter monetary accounting (cf. ating about two-thirds of GDP, 95 percent of
Obwona et al., 2014: 4).13 Also, statistical export revenues, and 40 percent of govern-
measurement and research stopped during ment revenues in the 1980s, the Amin years,
Idi Amin’s rule. Despite a renewed interest the war of his disposal, and the breakdown
(cf. Hansen, 2013), the 1970s in Uganda of services led to largescale famine in Kar-
are, in terms of social sciences, almost a amoja district, to which international non-
black hole. The reconstruction of social ten- governmental organizations and the World
Food Program answered with food aid for
12 Interview (JAK) with university lecturer, Kampala, about three hundred thousand people (Biel-
October 17, 2019, Kampala. lik & Henderson, 1981).
13 Usual proxy measures, such as money amounts in
circulation and energy consumption by which the
monetarized informal economy can be assessed,
do not work here either.
[12]3.1 Excursus I: The story of the ued with the expansions of cooperatives in
cooperative the mid-1980s when it overtook power. Sev-
eral interlocutors explain the late support for
Up until late colonial times, most Ugandan cooperatives—only in 2011 did a respective
farmers had remained undercapitalized, still law come into being, reportedly on civil so-
relying on human traction and still producing ciety and donor pressure—with the fear that
more for their own consumption and local successful cooperatives could become inde-
markets. The lack of capital, infrastructure, pendent power bases beyond the control of
and marketing capacities limits diversifi- the ruling party.15
cation for exports. The interplay of the late The history of cooperatives in Uganda
colonial and early independence period ap- can be traced back to 1913 when four farm-
pears in retrospect to be a progressive peri- ers decided to market their crops collectively
od in Ugandan history, also with regard to in what is now Mubende district. They came
agriculture and food security, as the boom of to be known as the Kinuakulya Growers.
cooperatives allowed for capital formation Similarly, in 1920, five groups of farmers
and alleviated the food situation in many ar- in Mengo met in Kampala to form the Bu-
eas. With an average farm size of eight acres ganda Growers Association with the goal to
during the early 1970s (Jameson, 1970: 5), control the domestic and export marketing
both food and cash crops could be pro- of members’ produce. The idea was adapt-
duced, a diversification that allowed many ed countrywide, leading to the formation of
Ugandans to make ends meet. Many consid- the cooperative movement (Ahimbisibwe,
er this period to be progressive because of 2019). The cooperative movement was thus
the rise and success of producers’ coopera- a counterforce against the unfavorable terms
tives. These marketed mostly cash crops such of trade and was used to bypass a trade
as cotton, coffee, and tobacco but stretched system that was monopolized by Ugandan
into dairy and meat production as well. Joint Asians and Europeans. Both groups used
marketing and processing not only allowed their leverage in the Legislative Council to
economies of scale in these steps but also block the expansion of African–Ugandan co-
enhanced the farmers’ negotiation leverage operatives (Young et al., 1981: 59).
and seemed to have allowed for capital for- Being the two major income earners, cof-
mation on the country side as well, since co- fee and cotton became the center of coop-
operatives offered farmers access to capital. erative activities in Uganda, in which both
The effects on food security could be seen in the colonial and post-independence gov-
newly created storage silos for cases of food ernments were keenly interested because ex-
emergencies, which however had become port taxes were the main recurrent revenue
rare in the period. Beans and maize stored of the state (cf. Schlichte, 2021). For a long
in silos were either sold, mostly to Kenya, or time, the colonial government opposed the
used, in the 1980s, to repay Tanzania for its creation of cooperatives and enacted laws
efforts to dispose Amin.14 that made it an offense for any financial in-
The story of cooperatives in Uganda is, stitution to give credit to an African farmer.
however, mixed. The most successful ones The restrictions forced cooperatives to op-
became targets of corruptive behavior or erate underground. In 1946, when the co-
were used as starting points for politicians’ operative ordinance was enacted to legalize
careers. It is probably for this latter reason their operations, peasant farmers saw it as
that the current government has not contin-
15 “It is difficult to rule a rich man,” as quoted from
14 Interview (KS) with former minister, October 14, an interview (JAK, KS) with a Farmer Association
2019, Kampala. representative, Kampala, October 25, 2019.
SOCIUM • SFB 1342 WorkingPapers No. 18 [13]You can also read
