Food Insecurity In Uganda Essay

This section explains the major determinants of food insecurity in Uganda. Although a substantial number of factors, directly and indirectly, related to food insecurity problem, we can classify those into three major categories such as i) supply and demand related factors, ii) domestic and internal price shock related factors, and iii) cultural factors and influences of conflict.

4.1 Changing Crop Production and Increased Demand

A lot of factors affect changing scenario of crop production, for example, lower agricultural productivity of certain crops, costly and inadequate supply of inputs, reduced crop varieties, low level of production diversification, high level of land fragmentation, reduced indigenous and communal farming practices

The total area of Uganda being used for agricultural production is increased to 42% in recent time from 24% in 1961. The production of cocoa has increased 57 times compare to the production in 1961. In terms of total planted land, plantains, cassava, sweet potatoes, and maize are the major harvested crops. Since colonial time, cotton production in Uganda decreased significantly and in the meantime, production of coffee, soy beans, and sesame seed has been increased in terms of total harvested areas and production volume. Coffee is the main export item, and it contributes to 50% of foreign earnings. Agricultural input like seed and fertilizer are costly due to high transportation costs, administrative

People from different ethnic groups migrates to urban areas for more monetary income and consequently loss their traditional sources of foods from the natural environment. Thus, they are more vulnerable to the food insecurity losing their emergency source of indigenous foods. Now, rural farmers are more interested in producing on commercial basis to earn more money by selling staple crops. As a result, most farmers abandoned the production of their traditional foods and thus decreased the supply of different local foods. This also contributes to food insecurity, especially for the children and women of poor households. Although the prevalence of HIV/AIDS and malaria are low right now, but it costs a lot from a different perspective. So, having adult HIV/AIDS positive family member reduces the sources of income and increases the probability to be a food insecure household (Tsai et al., 2011). Additionally, the refugees from neighboring conflict zones, e.g., South Sudan, Congo also increase the local food demand and thus results in higher food