By Abdirahman Meygag

One of the most surprising things about visiting Karamoja is not just the beautiful rambling hills but also how green the area is.

Most visitors wonder how an area that can support such stunning vegetation is also one of the most food-insecure regions in Uganda.

In 2023, about 580,000 people in Karamoja, 45 per cent of the population, suffered unacceptably high levels of food insecurity.

This compounded the malnutrition situation during the lean season, leaving many women and children malnourished.

The children of Karamoja who are afflicted by malnutrition continue to face a bleak future as their physical and mental development could be irreparably impaired – impacting their future education and economic outcomes.

But hidden behind the food insecurity data and the often-told story of hunger in Karamoja is a different story – a story of resilient farmers that have decided to make the proverbial lemonade out of lemons. Karamoja is no doubt a difficult area and the stunning scenery and vegetation belies the fact that the soil in most parts of the sub-region does not retain enough water, making successful farming a challenge.

Karamoja experiences long dry spells and only one rainy season in the year. Sometimes, during the rainy season, the area floods. These erratic weather patterns often carry with them seasonal diseases such as malaria. These combine with food insecurity to create a dire socio-economic situation.

But the farmers in Karamoja refuse to let these challenges define them. They have approached the challenges of their region with innovation and resilience – maximising the green belts and the short rainy season to produce food that is nourishing their own people.

The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP), a major buyer of food in Uganda, has worked with farmers over many years to give them the tools and knowledge to improve the quantity and quality of their produce so they can attract a good price and sell to wider markets.

Karamoja is a deeply communal society, and this cultural camaraderie has contributed to the success of farmers associations in Karamoja. On their own, farmers would have only been able to grow food on small parcels of land, but by coming together under associations to bulk their produce they can supply bigger markets. Also, they can jointly negotiate for better prices.

When farmers are given the right tools and technology, they can keep nourishing their communities no matter how hard the terrain is.

The farmers in Karamoja, for instance, are the main suppliers of food for the region’s school feeding programme – providing food that nourishes the next generation and demonstrating that locally-led school feeding programmes can be successful.

Since 2018, WFP alone has purchased over 3,500 metric tonnes of maize and beans directly from farmers associations in Karamoja, injecting USD 2.5 million into the local economy.

This is part of WFP’s wider commitment to support local farmers as reflected by plans to scale up local purchase over time. This year, WFP projects that it will buy over 4600 mt of food from farmers in Karamoja – injecting an estimated 4.12 million USD into the economy.

Over 80 percent of WFP’s procurement is done locally throughout Uganda. In the last 10 years, WFP has purchased over 850,000 metric tonnes from farmers in Uganda and injected 330 million USD into the economy.

Yet, even with this investment and remarkable contribution to the economy, Karamoja’s farmers are yet to reach their full potential.

The government of Uganda has in the past few years, under approaches such as the Parish Development Model, recognised the potential of Karamoja as a food production hub.  In this vein, government has committed to invest more resources in enabling Karamoja to produce more food.

Farmers are at the centre of our food system, but the vagaries of climate change still threaten their wellbeing.

As Karamoja heads into the annual lean season, a period of prolonged dry spells and high food insecurity, we must remember to tell not just the stories of households struggling to put food on the family table, but also of the farmers who nourish their community despite immense challenges.

We must also invest more in farmers so that they can continue to innovate and find ways to scale their production further. Karamoja has the potential to supply food not just for its own people, but to Uganda and even to neighbouring countries. If this potential is tapped, farming might be the engine that drives Karamoja from vulnerability to prosperity.

Abdirahman Meygag is the WFP Uganda Country Representative