In the Acholi sub-region of northern Uganda, commercial farmers are experiencing an increasing theft of maize. Arthur Owor and Carolin Dieterle explore the underlying reasons for this and draw attention to the need for more meaningful collaboration between investors and host communities.
This article is part of the #PublicAuthority blog series, part of the ESRC-funded Centre for Public Authority and International Development.
In the Acholi sub-region of northern Uganda, commercial agriculture is on the rise. After a gruelling 20-year war against the Lord’s Resistance Army, the region is experiencing renewed economic growth and an influx of private investment ventures in commercial agriculture. Taking advantage of the region’s favourable soils and climate, foreign and domestic companies are setting up large-scale maize, rice and sugarcane plantations.
Many see the expansion of commercial agriculture as an opportunity to help lift the region out of poverty by providing much needed employment opportunities, boosting local and regional markets, expanding infrastructure, and delivering technological know-how – a clear ‘win-win’ for both the investors and the host communities. However, increasing instances of crop theft on commercial farms reveal that ‘win-win’ scenarios are not an automatic outcome. Visiting a range of commercial agriculture projects across the Acholi sub-region, we learned that systematic maize theft is frustrating many investors. In one case, a police raid near a maize farm in Nwoya District recovered over 13 tons of maize from a nearby village.
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