Mr Robert Atugonza is at his wit’s end. As a leader of Masindi Sugarcane Growers Association Limited (MASIGAL) thinks as farmers, they deserve better and will not rest until they are respected, paid a fair price and have a say in the sugarcane sector.
Narrating to researchers the sugarcane growing history in his area last December, he could not hide his disgust at what is happening to cane farmers at the moment. Things were once better, he said, but have deteriorated as time went by.
“People didn’t want to grow cane but were lured into growing sugarcane and told ‘the miller is here and it will help you,’” he told a community baraza in Kabango town council, Masindi district last month. “It’s not working. The government has failed to control the miller, farmers are exploited.”
Sugarcane farmers countrywide are faced with various challenges, chief among them is that many are stuck with an overgrown cane that millers are not willing to take, low cane prices, cane fires, and food insecurity.
The baraza was organised by the Economic Policy Research Centre as part of a major study that is assessing the sugarcane sector in Uganda to understand the intricacies that lie amidst farmers, millers and their communities in general. The study will draw recommendations that will be used by the government, communities, and millers to make better the operations in the industry. Uganda is now hosting to major sugar manufacturers but this has not translated into transformed communities.
The three-year study is significant in that sugarcane is among the fourteen strategic commodities earmarked by the Government of Uganda to foster agro-industrialisation under the National Development Plan III programmes.
Sugarcane is not only seen as an avenue for livelihood engagement in terms of providing the necessary employment, revenues and incomes but also its benefits spread to entire communities through proxies received from factories set up within vicinities of these rural communities.
Sugarcane in Uganda is majorly grown in four regions – Busoga, Bunyoro, Buganda and Acholi – but there are serious questions over whether the sector has helped growing participating communities or simply sunk them into perennial food insecurity and poverty.
Focus group discussion conducted by EPRC researchers with community in Mayuge district, Eastern Uganda
Dr. Swaibu Mbowa, a senior research fellow at EPRC, explained that the Uganda Bureau of Statistics (UBOS) produces poverty numbers – both income and food – but these have consistently shown that cane growing areas are worse off. This begs understanding as to why.
Following up on the public dialogue held last August, the EPRC traversed the country talking to cane-growing households, interviewing key players in the industry and holding community dialogues. These are expected to generate evidence that authorities can rely on to better the sector.
Sugarcane-dependent communities face different realities – while it emerged that in Busoga, farmers are battling with the issue of permits that would allow them to sell their cane to millers, in Bunyoro there are no permits but millers are not willing to take farmers’ cane.
Also, it emerged that the formula that the government put in the Sugarcane Act as a base to calculate prices is not realistic.
“How do you use average cane price to calculate average cane price?” wondered Atugonza. Issues of why the Sugar Board to regulate the industry has not been instituted were also discussed.
All these will come up in the comprehensive report that the Centre will produce. The study is being carried out by EPRC in collaboration with the Innovation Lab for Food Security Policy Research, Capacity, and Influence (PRCI) with financial support from USAID.
Atugonza, like many other stakeholders that the EPRC is engaging, hope that this study can change the way the sector is running and improve incomes and the general welfare of sugarcane farmers.
