Building just and sustainable food systems: A case of female small-scale farmers in Gulu district, Uganda

Small-scale farmers in Gulu district, Uganda, face significant challenges within the current food systems but to female farmers, the challenges are more profound. This research aims to identify opportunities for building more just and sustainable food systems for these farmers, with a focus on understanding challenges, existing interventions, and the role of higher institutions of learning. The study will also explore gender-specific challenges faced by women farmers in the region.

Aims and objectives

1. Identify the challenges faced by small-scale farmers in Gulu district within the current food systems, with a specific focus on gender-specific challenges faced by women farmers.

2. Evaluate the forms of support provided to female small-scale farmers by various actors and understand how sustainable the support is.

3. Understand what skills female small-scale farmers possess and how educational institutions are supporting the development of skills that will foster the development of just and sustainable food systems for female small-scale farmers. Literature review

The historical significance of agriculture in Uganda, underscores the need for a transformative approach to address the challenges faced by small-scale farmers. From the 1960's over 90% of the population derived their livelihood from agriculture which contributed for over 60% of the country's Gross Domestic Product (GDP) with over 90% of the exports being agricultural hence showing economic growth in Uganda was majorly driven by agriculture (Mettrick, 1967, pg. 9).

This is similar to the current trends as according to the Uganda Bureau of Statistics (2017, p.188), over 80% of the country's' population are taking part in some form of agricultural activity. Of these, 92% are rural farmers engaged in unsustainable small-scale agriculture which is their main source of livelihoods (ibid).

While previous studies emphasize just transitions in the energy sector (Evans and Phelan, 2016: Stevis and Felli, 2015), recent literature suggests a growing focus on sustainability transitions within food systems, necessitating an exploration of inclusion and inequality aspects (Hebinck et al., 2021).

Food systems are changing globally including those in Gulu, the changes in the food systems in Gulu are further worsened by issues such as deforestation. In Northern Uganda there has been a recent and rapid increase in the level of deforestation and this has severely disrupted food systems in Gulu especially at primary production (Gillespie and van den Bold, 2017; Branch and Martiniello, 2018).

However, literature shows that women specifically are more vulnerable and not only face more devastating effects of disruptions in food systems but they are excluded from agricultural production and related support services like agricultural extension (Carita-Norway, 2019). The study hence aims to understand the challenges female small-scale farmers face in building more sustainable and just food systtems