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"The study was conducted in Gulu District, specifically in Coo-Pe camp situated in Bungatira Sub-county. It evaluated the contribution of the Northern Uganda conflict to food insecurity through its impacts on the factors of production; land, labour, and capital in form of income and seed availability on the levels of production, availability, and sufficiency of the staple food crops grown in the district. The study involved 60 respondents randomly selected from the camp. There was a 55.6% reduction in the average farm size tilled apparently by the population in the camp. Farmland in the camp is largely hired by 66.7% of the respondents at a cost of UG shs 50,000 per acre per growing season. Access to the originally larger farmlands was possible only to 25% of the respondents; with those who had no access indicating fear of abduction as the most profound barrier. Average distance to the farmlands from the camp is 4.7 Km, this was too far and affected efficient agronomic practices and consequently led to yield declines. Economic constraint was high, as only 48.3% of respondents were engaged in income generating activities. Average income per day was at 1555.6 UG shs per day; this is less than a dollar and puts them all quite below the poverty line.
"Labour inadequacy was at 85% and greatly affected the will of the population to carry out larger farming; as stated by 94.2% of the respondents. Labour inadequacy minimally affected effective crop harvesting from fields; an indication that fewer yields were realized and the farmers could harvest them all. 53.3% of the population used local inferior germplasm for crop production; only 46.7% of them exploited improved seed varieties for farming. Most prevalent reason for the use of local seed varieties was that many respondents were not in the selected group of beneficiaries. Non-governmental organizations notably CRS and the IRC provided 82.1% of the improved seed varieties used by the displaced farmers. Government offered no seed variety to the displaced population.
"Yield reduction was worst in rice with 100% decline and least in groundnuts with a drop of 17.4%. There were also negative changes in the number of farmers; most prominent decline was in Rice, with 100% drop. Only one crop, maize had an upsurge in the number of growers, as given by the 55.6% rise in number of farmers." |
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