Poverty pushing families to dispose of their land cheaply-study
Officials from CSOs pose for a group photo at the press launch of the Keep Your Land Keep Your Seed Campaign in Kampala in November 2024. PHOTO/BUSEIN SAMILU
What you need to know:
- Commodification of land has had a tremendous impact on many other aspects that also came up during these studies.
Massive monetisation of land, coupled with a high rate of poverty is forcing most poor families in the four sub-regions of Busoga, Lango, Kumam, Teso and Karamoja, to dispose-of their land cheaply, a new study has revealed.
A study by Civil Society organisations led by Land and Equity Movement in Uganda (LEMU) presented to reporters on the press launch of the ‘Keep my Land, Keep my Seed campaign’ found out that the commodification, commercialisation, and monetisation of land in these regions, have led to many communities losing their land.
“In all these areas, ongoing commodification of land has been linked to the speed with which land is being ‘sold’ off by community members, habitually triggering conflicts within families and communities,” reads part of the study findings.
In Lango, for instance, the study revealed that people rampantly sold off their land to solve both small and big needs.
This commodification of land, Dr Theresa Auma, the executive director of LEMU said has birthed a dangerous attitude in these landed communities, in which the sale of land is seen as an acceptable recourse for any of their monetary (cash) needs, including those that previously did not necessitate possession of money, such as marriage.
Unlike in Lango where land is completely sold off, in Busoga the study revealed that land is rented out for more than five years but cheaply.
“Here, a new “investor’ class has descended onto these landed communities, renting land (for sugarcane growing) on extremely vague and exploitative terms, and using cunning methods such as prolonged harvesting periods and their financial muscle to ultimately dispossess people of their land,” it reads.
Dr Auma told the Monitor that local and cultural leaders in Teso-Kumam decried how commodification of land has given birth to a dangerous belief that “another way of getting money” is through the sale of land.
“Commodification of land has had a tremendous impact on many other aspects that also came up during these studies. For instance, even when participants decried the growing population on an unchanging land, such as in Busoga, it was consistently notable that such population increase would not have meant the same thing had there been restrictions on land sales (or land renting),” she said.
The 2024 preliminary results of the National Population and Housing Census (NHPC) indicated that Acholi has 28 28.5 square kilometre area with two million people, Busoga-9.4sq-km with 4m, Karamoja-27.4sq-km with 1.4m, Teso-11.6sq-km with 1.4m, and Lango-12.8sq-km with 2.5m.
Although this study linked the land loss in these areas to other factors like; land grabbing, state infrastructure and other ‘development’ projects, and the paradox of land documentation and access to justice, officials said voluntary disposal through selling and renting cheaply was the major driver of land loss in these areas.
“The fact that influential family members (such as husbands in homes) are able to let out family land for money, either through complete sales or termly renting, means little, if any land, remains for these otherwise land-dependent families to reproduce themselves,” the study highlighted.
The study findings prompted LEMU in partnership with other CSOs in the Land and food sectors including; LANDnet, Uganda Community Based Association for Women and Children Welfare (UCOBAC), Southern and Eastern Africa Trade Information and Negotiations Institute (SEATINI), Food Rights Alliance (FRA), The Coalition of Pastoralist Civil Society Organisations (COPACSO), Uganda Agribusiness Alliance (UAA) and OXFAM, to initiate the launched ‘Keep my Land, Keep my Seed campaign’ with an aim of reversing the negative developments.
Dr Auma said that the campaign will majorly advocate for the retention of land, and indigenous seed/food varieties by the rural farming and pastoral communities so as to bolster their resilience against famine, food shortage, extreme poverty and other climate induced forms of socioeconomic crisis, which are exacerbated by the dominance of commercial approaches to land access (land sales) and the dominance of ‘improved’ seed varieties and commercial crops which are tradable in the market.
Mr Steve Hodges the chief executive officer of UAA said that most people tend to over till the small portion of land after losing the bigger one through cheap land sales reducing its productivity.
Ritah Kemigisa Advocacy and Communication Associate at UCOBAC asked fellow CSOs to use this infinity campaign, top popularize the (un)documented and positive cultural land management principles and practices, and work with communities to update these wherever necessary, and al;so revisit the prevalent rhetoric around patriarchy, widows, and women’s land rights.
Ms Stella Akutui, the Women’s Land Rights Advocate at LANDnet Uganda asked communities to alwa retain their land since it is central to sustainable crop farming, pastoralism, and livelihoods as a whole, and as well be selective in adopting “modern” agricultural practices and deliberately adopt or revive indigenous agricultural (agroecological) practices.
