Why is Uganda experiencing a food crisis?

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At least 19 people have starved to death in the Karamoja region, where 1.5 million people are at risk of malnutrition, according to the Famine Early Warning Systems Network (Fews Net), an organisation which signals the alarm on food security. The government has now begun emergency food distribution in Karamoja, but the worsening drought is reviving memories of the 2022 hunger crisis, which killed more than 2,000 people. What is behind this crisis and how is the government addressing it? Severe drought in Uganda has triggered rising levels of food insecurity, with the country’s Karamoja region the worst hit, according to Fews Net. The region is vast and dry with unforgiving terrain. Most communities there depend on farming and livestock for survival. Lucia Lomiza told Al Jazeera she is still grieving her husband, whose death, she said, was linked to complications caused by the drought. “Right now, people are burning charcoal to survive. I don’t have the energy to do it. Most of my family members have left the village to go fend for themselves. I’m not the only one suffering from this drought,” she said. Elijah Loore, who heads the disaster management committee in the district, said hungry residents have been arriving at the government office every other day hoping to be given something to eat, but he has little to spare. “More people are becoming malnourished. Mostly the children, lactating mothers, the elderly, pregnant mothers, most of the disabled who cannot even move to look maybe for something at home,” he told Al Jazeera. The Karamoja region has not had rainfall since April, the beginning of the planting season. Kristof Titeca, an assistant professor at the Institute of Development Policy and Management at the University of Antwerp, Belgium, whose work has focused on Uganda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, said the food crisis is due to a combination of issues – climate change is just one cause of the drought. “First, there is a climate crisis. With the worsening climate, there’s been a prolonged dry spell … This isn’t the first time this happened in the region. There is also an overall environmental degradation in the region, which is related, with widespread poverty, leading to overgrazing and deforestation,” he said. Conflict between cattle herders and cattle raiders has exacerbated the crisis, with food prices rising. “Lastly, and most importantly, historically, the Karamoja region has been a marginalised region in Uganda. This has been the case since colonisation, and it didn’t improve during Uganda’s successive post-colonial governments,” he said. The United States’s cancellation of foreign aid under President Donald Trump has also contributed to the deepening crisis, Titeca said. “Aid agencies have severely withdrawn their food aid in the country,” he said. “A broader structural solution is needed for Karamoja – it’s not the first food crisis in the area and in the current context, it will unfortunately not be the last,” he added. Job Kijji, the executive director of IDEA, a policy think tank in Uganda, said the real driver of the current crisis is a failure of governance. “For years, millions of dollars meant for Karamoja have been stolen by corrupt officials. This was perfectly illustrated by the recent iron sheet scandal, where almost the entire cabinet was caught stealing roofing materials meant for housing the Karimojong people,” he said. “Karamoja is incredibly rich in gold, limestone and granite, yet investors take it all and leave locals to starve despite the region having a dedicated ministry,” he noted. “The ultimate irony is that western Uganda pours away excess milk while Karamoja starves. We don’t need aid. We need systemic investment in climate-smart agriculture, water harvesting, irrigation and national preservation networks to move food from surplus areas to deficient ones,” he added. Reporting from Uganda, Al Jazeera’s Catherine Soi said the Uganda government has set aside $18m in aid for the Karamoja region. On July 22, after 19 people died of starvation in Karamoja, the government began a food distribution system, sending supplies of maize flour and beans. Sam Engola, minister for disaster preparedness and refugees, launched the aid distribution efforts on July 22 and wrote on X the following day that Uganda had also held a meeting with the World Food Programme (WFP) to “discuss the ongoing government interventions of providing food relief to vulnerable families and establishing effective and equitable strategies to support those affected by the hunger crisis”. “I highlighted that while immediate food relief is critical, it remains a short-term measure. We are collaborating with the Ministry of Agriculture on sustainable, long-term solutions, specifically investing in irrigation schemes, valley dams, grain silos, and drought-resistant crops,” he said. “These initiatives aim to build community resilience, boost crop and livestock production, and ultimately transform Karamoja into a self-sufficient food basket capable of supplying other regions, moving away from annual relief dependency,” he added. “Uganda is not the only country in the Horn of Africa affected by recurring droughts,” Al Jazeera’s Soi reported, however, adding that millions of people across Kenya, Somalia, Ethiopia and South Sudan are also facing severe food shortages. According to Kijji, the state continues to deploy “its failed playbook” by sending emergency maize flour and beans to Karamoja only after starvation has already set in, which functions merely as a political band-aid rather than a sustainable solution. “To fix this, the government must completely abandon the handout model and aggressively invest in local production systems. This includes climate-smart agricultural systems, localised water harvesting, solar-powered irrigation networks, mechanised agriculture, and climate-resilient crop production,” he said. Additionally, Uganda needs to immediately improve its national food distribution and preservation infrastructure, he stressed. “The country does not suffer from a total food shortage; it suffers from a structural distribution crisis. We live in a nation of extreme irony where farmers in western Uganda sometimes pour away excess milk due to a lack of market access, while children in Karamoja die of acute hunger. We must invest heavily in modern preservation systems, post-harvest storage facilities, and nationwide cold chains that can safely transfer food from surplus-producing areas to food-deficient zones,” he said. “Finally, this must be accompanied by robust resource governance and strict accountability. Mineral revenues extracted from Karamoja must be legally ring-fenced to fund the sub-region’s agricultural infrastructure, alongside the rigorous prosecution of officials who embezzle relief funds,” he added. 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