Mr. Joshua Aijuka:

PELUM Uganda has been working since 1995 to improve the livelihoods of smallholder farmers and the sustainability of rural communities through ecological land use management. We work collaboratively with like-minded organisations to share skills and knowledge about good practices and techniques, to undertake research and demonstration projects and to advocate for policies that better support small-scale farmers. PELUM Uganda is part of an association of civil society organisations from 12 countries across eastern, central and southern Africa. Our current strategic plan focuses on three major areas: sustainable farming systems, with a specific focus on the wide promotion of climate-resilient agroecological systems, farmer-managed seed systems, traditional indigenous and wild foods and local innovations in agriculture; agricultural market development; and advocacy towards policy makers at national level and links to regional and continental processes for an enabling policy environment which supports the rights of smallholder farmers and the advancement of agroecology.

PELUM Uganda is one of five partners that are implementing a five-year project aimed at securing resource rights for smallholder farmers in eastern and northern Uganda. PELUM Uganda is providing technical capacity support on agroecology to four local implementing partners, which are working with 48,000 smallholder farmers. The project applies participatory approaches, such as an climate-resilient agroecosystems model and a gender action learning systems methodology to facilitate gender-responsive, inclusive and sustainable management of natural and agricultural ecosystems in the context of climate change. PELUM Uganda is the new country lead organisation for the ecological organic agriculture initiative and the co-host of the eastern Africa knowledge hub on organic farming.

Agriculture is critical for Uganda's economy and for its population, which is growing quickly. The majority of the population live in rural areas and are directly dependent on agriculture for their livelihoods. Agriculture employs approximately 69% of the labour force, 77% of whom are women and most of whom reside in rural areas. Specific challenges are having a negative impact on the performance of the sector in terms of production and productivity. Soil and land degradation is the key challenge in this context. According to a study by the International Fertiliser Development Centre, Uganda is one of the countries in sub-Saharan Africa with the highest rates of soil degradation, leading to a loss of approximately 12% of our GDP.

The ambitions to transform the agriculture sector from a largely subsistence to a more commercially oriented agriculture largely fail to recognise the shortcomings of this approach in terms of delivering inclusive socioeconomic development, especially for poor smallholder farmers, or strengthening resilience to the growing challenges related to climate change. Other negative linkages relate to the practice of commercial agriculture on large aggregated land holdings. In a context where diverse tenurial systems exist, the potential for unlawful land evictions of vulnerable smallholder farmers and encroachment onto communally held lands and natural ecosystems that offer key ecosystem services for current and future generations represent significant threats in terms of poverty and conflict. We have provided some cases in the submission.

There exists an ever-growing evidence base, both globally and nationally, that agroecological production systems deliver a more inclusive and sustainable path to rural agricultural transformation. A long-term comparative assessment, which was conducted by Misereor in Uganda, revealed that locally adapted means of sustainable farm management offer more viable alternatives for smallholder farmers than conventional industrial farming, which in this case would be the contract outgrower schemes that link with conventional farms to sell produce, and conventional farming. Farmers who were practising agroecological farming exhibited more resilience to market fluctuations, pest and disease outbreaks and harsh climatic conditions compared with their conventional counterparts. As a result, smallholder agroecological farmers were more food and nutrition secure through their dietary diversity. They also had higher incomes because they had to spend less on food since they were growing it, they used family labour and used locally sourced inputs. They were also spending less on medical care for basic ailments.

I will hand over to Michael O'Brien to present the conclusions and recommendations.