Land and Equity Movement in Uganda (LEMU) researchers led by Executive Director Dr Theresa Auma have uncovered what they describe as the “Unjust Transitions: Intricacies of Exclusion and Exploitation in Green Energy Projects in Northern Uganda.”
In this research, falling under the main one titled “The Preventive Legal Empowerment: early Alerts and Action to Strengthen Rights in the Context of Land-Based Investments in Uganda,” Dr Theresa and Alex Ssebukalu did a case study on Bukona Agro Processors, a cassava-based distillery manufacturing ethanol in Lapem village, Coorom parish, Koch-goma sub-county in Nwoya district.
In 2017, the government launched the cassava commercialisation project through the Acholibur Parish Project (APP) and Bukona Agro Processors Ltd as two main avenues to eradicate poverty and cause a shift towards the use of green energy in Northern Uganda.
However, the relationships between the factory and the local community of Koch-Goma became intricate as per the empirical data gathered by the researchers.
The data was collected between January 2022 and January 2025 with about 220 individuals participating.
“This case study presents findings on the nature and extent of local community grievances as being related to displacement of land use patterns, exploitation of labour, environmental degradation and shows that the power imbalance between the investment company and the local community is reinforced by the interest of the Uganda government and those of the global and regional financial institutions that fund the investment in the name of promoting a just transition to green energy,” the researchers say.
What were the main findings?
The first finding was grievances around land and land use. “In recent years, Uganda has begun to experience the reality of the global hype about “green transition” in an economic context driven by capitalist-market imperatives through mainly Foreign Direct Investments,” Dr Theresa and Ssebukalu said.
They added that the contestation around the Bukona intervention having implications for land rights and land use is that “much as the call for local farmers to grow cassava was not a direct form of land grabbing, the farmers argue that it was a new form of indirect land grabbing because their land was rendered useless during the period they grew cassava.”
Farmers further argue that all their labour, land and time went to waste after the factory declined to buy the cassava produced specially for factory consumption.
Deprived of the expected financial returns from the cassava sales, community members were “compelled to revert to charcoal production through deforestation as a means of securing an alternative income.”
According to the researchers, the shift in alternative income frustrates the objectives of the cassava commercialisation initiative and exacerbates environmental degradation, highlighting the challenges of implementing large-scale agricultural projects without robust market guarantees.
The second finding was grievances around water, land and air pollution. “In a community meeting, community members described how the waste product from the factory had polluted the local Ayego River and killed the aquatic life with different fish breeds, birds, snails, among others, all dying.
Human beings and animals that consumed the water were also sick. “This same polluted water from Ayego River drains into the River Nile, expanding the cycle of the pollution beyond the source of the pollution itself.”
Air and land pollution: The researchers found out that molasses produced by the factory and deposited on the open ground produce “a terrible stench.”
According to the community members’ belief, the stench could cause some disease to humans and animals, and has already lowered their quality of life as they cannot eat outside their house because the stench makes people lose their appetite.
While the Green Energy Initiative (GEI) of Bukona Agro Processors Ltd seems to appeal to the central government and the donors, the study found that local government leaders represented by both the sub-county at Koch-Goma and the Nwoya district local government are disgruntled by the lack of compliance with the agreed Memorandum of Understanding, standards and principles that promote responsible investment and rural economic development.
Initially, Bukona stated that farmers would supply fresh cassava and factory workers would dry it, but later the rules were changed to have farmers dry it before selling.
Bukona Agro Processors Ltd confirmed that the agreed purchasing rates were shs500 per kilogram for dried cassava and shs175 per kilogram for fresh cassava.
These figures have fallen too low as farmers and local leaders had expected fairer rates.
This report is being updated.
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