The right to food: How can we free Karamoja from hunger?

The right to adequate food and freedom from hunger traces its trail from 1941. This is when United States President Franklin Roosevelt in his ‘four freedoms speech’ articulated a case for the right to adequate food. He identified ‘freedom from hunger’ as a tenet of ‘freedom from want.  Unknown to many, it is President Roosevelt’s presentation on the human right to adequate food during the 1945 San Francisco conference from where the United Nations (UN) emerged. 
In Uganda, the right to food gained footing in 1987 when government ratified the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.

Despite Uganda’s Constitutional commitment to end hunger and malnutrition, the percentage of the undernourished in areas such as Karamoja remains troubling. Located in the northeast of Uganda, Karamoja is slouching behind the rest of the country. Four years ago, income poverty stood at 66 percent up from 61 percent. Food poverty rose to 75 percent up from 70 percent in 2017.  This is according to Uganda Bureau of Statistics 2019/2020 area data. 

In tandem with this trend, Karamoja is characterised by chronic food insecurity and stands out as a leading beneficiary of food aid. In July 2022, reports indicated that 8 out of 10 Karimojong households had no food at all. Last year, Uganda lost a number of people in Karamoja due to hunger. In Kaabong district alone, 225 deaths were registered due to starvation. In Napak, 188 deaths were registered due to hunger, 35 deaths were registered in Moroto, 8 deaths in Karenga and the highest number being in Kotido with 1,676 deaths due to famine and hunger. Most victims were children and mothers. 

The gloomy portrayal notwithstanding, Karamoja is also blessed by nature. It is a food basket without food and without baskets.  The sub-region boasts of fertile soils in addition to its endowments of valuable mineral wealth. Over 80 per cent of the population relies on subsistence agriculture as its main source of livelihood. 

From the northern reaches of Elgon district north into the southern part of Nakapiripirit, the main crops cultivated are maize and beans, and in the swampier areas, rice. In the zone stretching from central Acholi into Western Karamoja, sorghum, finger millet and pigeon peas are the main crops for food while sim-sim, groundnuts and sorghum are grown for sale. Throughout the region, sorghum, maize and beans are produced both for home consumption and for income during a normal year. However, when maize and sorghum lack, families turn mainly to cassava flour (ediawut) and dry sweet potatoes (ngakokoi) for subsistence. The Karamojong depend on economic, human and physical assets to guarantee food, nutrition and livelihood security and savings are accumulated in the form of livestock as opposed to cash. 

The right to adequate food, though acknowledged, expressed and implied, has not been accorded priority when it comes to enforcement. Limitations at different levels have a bearing on the extent to which an enabling environment can be sustained to support enjoyment of that right in areas such as Karamoja.

With the Poverty Eradication Action Plan adopted as the framework for national planning and development, the Food and Nutrition Policy of 2003 was also formulated. The objective is to improve the nutritional status of all through coordinated multi-sectoral interventions focusing on food and nutrition security and increased incomes. 
The policy identified 12 focal areas for intervention: food supply and accessibility; food processing and preservation; food storage, marketing, and distribution; external food trade; food aid; food standards and quality control; nutrition; health; information, education and communication; gender, food and nutrition; food, nutrition and surveillance and research. 

The policy was designed to be implemented through existing local governments’ multi-sectoral committees which enjoins the district, sub-county and community. However, allocation of insufficient financial resources has haunted its implementation right from the grassroots. 
At the local government level, district nutrition coordination committees (DNCCs) comprising various sectoral stakeholders are tasked with driving the nutrition agenda. However, 20 years later, the challenge of coordination persists and while Karamoja established DNCCs, they have not yet embraced their role. Of more concern, the intricacy of coordinating multiple institutional stakeholders and projects across sectors at national level continues to undermine accountability for results. The food security interventions have been overly projectized, possibly to their own detriment.  
   
At the level of strategy, the Plan for Modernisation of Agriculture (PMA) advocates household granaries which offer a cheaper option. Whilst this stands out as an affordable food safety net, it eludes the essence of food security in the case of the landless who are bereft of the means to produce food. From a land use perspective, Article 237 of the 1995 Constitution grants Ugandans the right to own land based on customary, freehold, mailo or leasehold land tenure systems. However, intense pressure on grazing land due to the cultural attachment to pastoralism among the Karimojong relegated food cultivation to the fringes of the agriculturally endowed North East, causing food scarcity in the region. 

Speaking at the launch of the tractor hire scheme for the Karamoja sub-region on April 1, 2023 at Lorengedwat in Nabilatuk District, the National Agricultural Research Organisation (NARO) director cited lack of mechanisation and nonexistence of laboratory research facilities, among others, as “undermining the capacity to boost agricultural productivity in Karamoja.” He was enthusiastic though, that after 16 years, the Nabuin Zonal Agricultural Research and Development Institute is gaining a footing in innovation which will propel the Karamoja and Teso sub-regions into agro-industrialisation and create a regional hub for exploration. The drum beat for value-addition underscores government’s emphasis on commercial agriculture as a countrywide poverty alleviation strategy. 

Duncan Ongeng, faculty dean of agriculture and environment at Gulu University, a flagship institution in thenorthern region, opines that agribusiness is beginning to thrive in northern Uganda. Accordingly, households that previously devoted their energies to growing a range of food crops are now being persuaded to turn to high-profit crops including maize, soya bean, sunflower, which stand in the way of households’ dietary diversity. The decisive question that must exercise policy minds is how can we strike a balance between incentives for commercial agriculture and the stimulus for sustainable food production in Karamoja?       
     
Development policies sometimes lag behind evolving needs. Karamoja’s undoing is neither a deficit in means of production nor its vulnerability to vagaries of weather. Given their agro-pastoral pattern of livelihood, the predicament of food insecurity in Karamoja must be confronted with peculiar lenses. Investments in commercial agriculture have to be matched with a zealous backing for sustainable food production. In prioritising bulk water trapping, transfer and supply along with scaling solar-powered irrigation to boost commercial production, we should also deliver these provisions as constant companions of food growing throughout the region. Other intentional strategies including encouraging people to store adequate food or even promoting nutrition through food fortification and civic education can instrumentally turn around the region’s food security fortunes.
  
The assurance of a meal for the day is the starting point for any Karimojong household. What is even more important from a human rights stance is not only freedom from hunger but also equal access to essential nutritional safety. To deliver on this, stakeholders must be better coordinated on interventions. Development partners should also demonstrate willingness to redirect ‘aid’ from consumption to production. 

Crispin Kaheru, Commissioner, Uganda Human Rights Commission (UHRC)