Uganda, once again, should learn from Cuba on matters agriculture for food. Particularly, so, the  importance of advocating for food sovereignty versus simply advocating for food security. One can be food secure albeit not being in control of the production of the food that one consumes (food security). BUT if one is not in control of the production of the food that one consumes (food sovereignty), one is most definitely vulnerable to easily becoming food insecure.

Take for example the irony that the survival of Ugandans who derive livelihoods from ‘rolex’ likely depends on Bidco cooking oil. Bidco, which impoverished many in Uganda, continues to make a killing (pun intended) from the profits it makes selling cooking oil. And that the livelihoods of ‘rolex’ cooks are also heavily dependent on imported wheat; meaning that the first beneficiaries from the consumption of ‘rolex’ in Uganda are the wheat farmers in the Diaspora, say the USA and Russia.

One does not have to be an economist to deduce how vulnerable ‘rolex cooks are to food insecurity, if their sole source of income their ‘rolex’ business, which can be devastated by global phenomenon for which they have zero say. Read more on food insecurity of ‘rolex’ cooks here.

Uganda’s ‘modernisation-of-agriculture-logic of pushing people off their land; forcing them into urban centres; and making their livelihoods dependent on the products of those who pushed them off their land in the first place is irrational.

Read more on Cuba’s agriculture success story here