Colonial legacies and contemporary commercial farming outcomes: sugarcane in Eastern Uganda

Abstract

This article explores the impact of nineteenth-century colonial activities of cash crop farming which altered existing forms of land use from subsistence to capitalist commercial farming. Such modifications had long-term implications for postcolonial development paths by producing and reproducing structures that skew the benefits of commercial farming towards the capitalist agenda at the expense of the welfare of the local population. The article builds on the debates over colonial legacies of agrarian transformation using commercial sugarcane farming in eastern Uganda. Using youth surveys, qualitative tools and document reviews, the authors argue that the detrimental effects of sugarcane farming are a recurrence of capitalism rooted in colonial imperialist policies in Uganda. Through its processes of accumulation by dispossession, colonial-era capitalist systems continue to operate through land seizure for sugarcane farming at the expense of food crops, precipitating food insecurity. It has also pushed the indigenous population into a very vulnerable situation, offering poorly remunerated and extremely exploitative jobs in sugarcane farming. The authors argue that the broader historical context of colonialism is relevant in explaining the contemporary dynamics associated with activities such as commercial farming in postcolonial societies.