Food Production in UgandaThe Contribution of Uganda People's Culture to Food Production in Uganda In general, food production in Uganda is favoured by both a congenial climate and a diverse environment, with some parts of the country able to produce two crops per year. Some places produce up to three seasons like the Bafumbira in south western Uganda.
A variety of both indigenous and non-indigenous plant and animal foods are grown. Although Uganda is generally regarded as food self-sufficient, not all parts of the country are food secure, and may suffer deficiencies of particular crops or at particular times of year For example The Karimojong in North Eastern Uganda who live in a semi arid and live a nomadic life. It will be very hard for you to understand all about Uganda food without knowing the culture of the people of Uganda. Uganda is composed of many tribes and every tribe practices its separate culture and for that matter the food they produce, corresponds with the nature of their culture. For example in Northern Uganda where we have the Karimojomg who are cattle keeper and living a nomadic sort of life, will produce the types of food that is different from other tribes in Uganda. So, on this page we shall guide you to know how Uganda food goes hand in hand with culture. Uganda’s population is composed of diverse African ethnic groups. In addition, there are people of Asian, American and European descent. The present-day food culture has organically developed over time through people’s interaction with each other and with the environment. • Culture in its broad sense is the way of life of a particular society. It refers to the roles, uses, position, and symbolism of individuals, ideas and objects such as food, in all aspects of a society; including beliefs, values, norms, taboos, institutions, language, rituals and art. Some cultural practices can directly or indirectly influence the food security of a given society as culture prescribes the interactions between people, between people and land, and between people and food. • Most families in Uganda, apart from those in urban areas, produce their own food for home consumption and the rest for sale . The majority families in Uganda have three meals a day: a light breakfast (composed of a cup of tea or porridge), lunch and supper. Supper is usually the main meal of the day. • If we can take an example of the Iteso people, the day typically starts with a drink of an opaque millet beer ( ajon) and a baked sweet potato ( amukaru) or cassava, eaten either at home or in the field during work. • Scientifically, food is regarded first and foremost as a necessity to support physical activity and survival, and the nutrition and health of the people. However, food also plays a major secondary role in socio-cultural activities and to a certain extent defines ethnic identity. Within different ethnic groups, different foods have particular meanings and symbolism attached to them. For example, within the ethnic groups in the central and western parts of Uganda, insects such as grasshoppers and white ants are eaten as a delicacy and can be preserved for use until the next season, thus contributing to the food and nutritional security of such communities. • Among the pastoral ethnic groups like the Banyankole, Ateso and Karimojong, milk, meat, blood and milk products are central to their food culture. The Karimojong for example, bleed healthy cows from the jugular vein. The blood is collected in a calabash and mixed with milk before cooking. The cooked blood and milk meal is considered a delicacy, and mainly reserved for the men. Among the Banyakole however, bleeding of cattle for the same purpose is a dying practice as farmers adopt modern animal husbandry practices and non-indigenous cattle breeds. Nonetheless, the Banyankole still collect blood ( orwamba) from slaughtered animals, which is cooked on its own or added to a meat stew. • Other ethnic groups also hold particular foods in high regard. For example the Baganda value the banana ( matooke) so highly that the word for food ( emere) is largely synonymous with banana. Among the ethnic groups in the western and south-western parts of the country like the Banyoro, Batooro, Bakiga and Bagungu and the Nilotic and Sudanic people in the north and north-west, cereals such as millet and sorghum, and roots and tubers such as potatoes and cassava, are treasured. Thus on special occasions such as marriage ceremonies, special meals or delicacies like stiff millet porridge ( atap or akaro), millet or sorghum beer and obushera, a non-alcoholic malted and fermented drink, are served. Among these ethnic groups, a woman’s culinary skills are often judged by how well she makes akaro or atap. • Although differences in ethnic food habits do exist, they have changed over time as people migrate, intermarry and interact. This has resulted in an adoption of new cultures and the modification of existing ones. For example, with the advent of the early traders and colonialists new foods such as spices, non-indigenous fruits, wheat, rice and maize were introduced. • By the 1960 leavened bread had become popular because its ingredients were familiar and readily available. Maize and rice are other examples of introduced foods, which in various forms have increasingly contributed a major proportion of peoples’ diets. Such foods have therefore been adopted and acculturated within the Ugandan cultural setting to the extent that they are likewise subjected to indigenous traditional cultural food preparation practices such as malting, fermentation and brewing. • Ugandan society is predominantly strongly patriarchal. Thus while women grow most of the food, they do not own the land and in some cases they have to obtain permission to access land for food production. At times women do not even have full rights to the food they produce. Cultural issues also influence nutrition since the distribution of food and food taboos are culturally determined along age and gender lines. • The household unit is usually an extended family with men having full authority in the home. Women have the primary responsibility for childcare and food production while contributing to cash crop agriculture. Girls, mothers and boys provide the labour in the household and on the household farm. Meals are prepared by women and girls, while men and boys of over twelve years are culturally precluded from entering in the kitchen.
• HIV/AIDS has affected household/family relations in different ways, including strengthening or weakening some cultural practices. The mobility of working adults in households affects the total labour available for the household farm and its division between adults and children. It also affects the division of labour between men and women. • Culture in most Ugandan societies dictates that women care for the sick. In households stricken with AIDS women spend a lot of time taking care of the patients. Consequently, labour for specific agricultural tasks are significantly reduced, which steadily reduces the households’ capacity to produce or access enough food. In serious cases where HIV/AIDS has caused death of both mother and father, households and indeed communities have become highly food insecure, leaving many children malnourished. • Although not well documented, the food culture in households and communities affected by HIV/AIDS has changed; as such households develop different coping mechanisms to mitigate the effects of HIV/AIDS. • Foods like millet, cassava, matooke, sorghum, sweet potatoes, potatoes, maize and rice are served with sauce made from beans, peas, cow peas, groundnuts and occasionally, beef, chicken and fish. In addition, a typical Ugandan meal is served with steamed or boiled vegetables, which may also be mixed with the sauce. Other commonly eaten foods include yams, pumpkin, tomatoes, mangoes, citrus fruits, papayas and pineapples. Such cultural and food diversity enriches peoples’ diets. • However, in most ethnic groups, fruit is regarded as a food for children. It is also taboo for girls and adult men to climb fruit trees. The prohibition on girls climbing trees has its origin in the belief a girl’s chance of marriage would be ruined by a fall from a tree. If a girl accidentally fell from a tree, she might get injuries or fractures that could leave life-long scars or deformation; and no groom would be willing to take a deformed or scarred bride. Thus boys climb trees and harvest the fruit, which they share with their sisters. Although this is a good cultural practice from the children’s perspective, as they are able to get the vitamins, minerals and other nutrients in the fruit, the practice deprives the adults of the same nutrients. • In most Ugandan societies women are traditionally not allowed to eat chicken or eggs. The particular mythical belief behind this taboo varies across ethnic groups. In some groups, it is reckoned that a woman who eats chicken or eggs will become a thief. According to others, a woman who eats chicken or eggs will never settle in her marriage but go on scratching and pecking like a chicken does all day. The explanations behind these myths, whether apparently logical or mythical, are often not well understood, even as such practices are beginning to fade with exposure to modern education. • Most Ugandan cultures have traditionally possessed early warning systems for weather prediction based on indigenous knowledge systems. For example many ethnic groups would observe the migratory patterns of certain bird species, the water levels of particular wells or streams, earthquakes, and the drying patterns of certain tree species. All such signs would be interpreted to predict weather patterns, with community leaders advising members to prepare for whatever had been predicted in order to get ready for food production in Uganda and in their communities. • However, the elderly people who know and understand the indigenous weather prediction system are dying off without passing on their knowledge to the younger generation, and their knowledge is dying off with them. Unfortunately, the new modern technology for weather prediction has not been able to benefit the ethnic communities, as the predictions are often unreliable and rarely reach the farmers in time.Some local are too primitive to know the use of weather predictions . • Among many ethnic groups in Uganda, there exists a rich culture of indigenous systems and practices that for long have guided them in ensuring their food and nutritional security. For example, among some ethnic groups women would form communal farming groups of five to ten. The groups would take turns to till, sow, weed and harvest on individual member’s farms. In some cases the groups would also collectively store and sell or barter their produce. This would assist each member’s farm to produce more in a given season and to store more food than they would have had as individuals. Such communities have better food and nutritional security. • The Bakiga still practice such communal farming, but it is dying out. The extinction of this practice is partly attributable to education and its concomitant opportunities. In addition, as people migrate to urban areas to seek employment, they often send remittances to their families in rural areas, which prompt the recipients to opt out of the communal farming group. • Even with a wide cultural diversity there are a lot of commonalities among the different ethnicities. Eating alone is for example universally regarded as bad. For this reason, when you serve food to someone, you may have to eat with them or at least accompany them until they have finished. • Also among the different ethnic groups in Uganda it is good to be hospitable and to share. A visitor or long lost friend is usually welcomed by slaughtering an animal, in most cases a chicken. Ideally, the whole chicken is served to the visitor who then shares it with the hosts. Among the Baganda and Banyoro a visitor would first be served with coffee beans; the pastoral communities would serve the visitor milk first; while among the Bakiga a visitor is first served with sorghum porridge (obushera). Additionally, gifts of food to friends and family, especially around harvest season, are an integral part of many cultures in Uganda. Such gifts of food help balance out the distribution of food within a community, thereby improving food production in Uganda.
• When people of different ethnic backgrounds move into urban areas, they bring their culture along with them. However, traditional cultures have not always been fully supported in urban areas, and migrants may often find that they can no longer purchase the crops upon which their traditional cultural food practices rely. Thus they are forced to choose between using similar foods or even completely different foods, from those that are easily accessible in urban areas. • Urbanisation has had a wide variety of effects on food production in Uganda. Inter-ethnic marriages have increased, with concomitant cultural mixing. The simple fact of proximity means people begin to learn and practice elements drawn from different cultures. Also, people who originally had to produce their own food start to look at food entitlements in the form of cash earnings that can eventually be used to buy food. Urbanisation, therefore, has resulted in a sort of cultural hybridisation. Although a clear urban culture has yet to emerge in Uganda, it is evident that people in urban areas are culturally different from their traditional ethnic backgrounds. • As mentioned earlier, in urban areas people do not produce their food but earn food entitlements. This has led to the commercialisation of agriculture, particularly food production in Uganda. Thus more farmers are producing food for sale in urban areas, as different foods increasingly come to be treated as cash crops. Most farming households have for example abandoned the strongly culturally-determined custom of storing food in granaries for use in times of scarcity, preferring instead to secure their livelihood by saving the cash value of the crops. • Commercialisation of food production in Uganda increases the incomes of rural farm households. However, the increase has not been substantial since farm-gate prices for most food crops still remain low. Besides, there have been cases where farming households sell all their food produce and keep none for consumption or seed. This often happens in seasons of high demand when food prices increase dramatically. Simsim, bean and maize-farming communities in the eastern part of Uganda have often experienced this phenomenon. Such farming households often suffer food and nutritional insecurity as a result of cultural changes driven by commercialisation. • The 1990s saw the advent of fish exports. The export market pays a premium price for the fish, and this has driven up prices so that local fishing communities end up buying fish at the same price as on the export market. The high price of fish has caused fishing households to reduce consumption or in some cases even to completely cut it out of their diets. As a coping mechanism, fisher-folk have started consuming the by-products of fish processing such as skeletons and off-cuts, something that was originally regarded as a cultural taboo. Another coping mechanism has been the use of previously unexploited fish species that were restricted for cultural purposes and ceremonies. Culture impacts food production in Uganda and nutritional security through the systems of food production, distribution and utilisation within both households and communities in Uganda. Processes such as urbanisation, globalisation and modernisation have played a major role in modifying Uganda’s diverse cultures with a noticeable impact on food and nutritional security. Although some cultural practices have had negative effects on food and nutritional security, other customs and indigenous knowledge systems and practices provide opportunities for improving food and nutritional security. OTHER RELATED PAGES Uganda Banana Food is taken as a staple food for more than ¾ of people living in Uganda. 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