In eastern Uganda’s Busoga region, fertile fields once nourished families with bananas, maize, and coffee. Today, they are dominated by sugarcane. Farmers embraced cane as a lifeline after coffee wilt and collapsing vanilla markets left them struggling. But the crop’s promise of quick cash has come at steep costs: exhausted soils, shrinking food supplies, and deepening dependence on powerful millers who control prices and politics.
This reporting project follows farmers in Budondo and beyond as they wrestle with the consequences of sugarcane monoculture and their search for ways out of the trap. Their stories reveal how food insecurity now forces Uganda to import staples once grown locally, and how deforestation tied to cane has erased traditional landscapes, including the Mutuba tree that once sustained both ecosystems and cultural heritage.
Yet alongside this crisis, a movement is growing. From climate resilience hubs led by women and youth to cultural educators reviving barkcloth traditions, Ugandans are reclaiming Indigenous practices and imagining futures beyond sugarcane. Fireside talks, cooperative farming, and tree planting are helping to reconnect communities with their land and identity.
Through these intertwined narratives of agriculture, culture, and climate change, this project highlights both the vulnerabilities and the resilience of rural Uganda.
