Sustainability researcher Ronald Byaruhanga examined how farmers and civil society organisations (CSOs) in Uganda mobilise against unfavourable policies. Environmental degradation, rising inequalities, and declining soil fertility are pushing smallholder farmers to adopt ecological farming practices that strengthen biodiversity and food security. Yet state policies and market incentives favour industrial agriculture, often marginalising alternative practices deemed less efficient and profitable.
In his 2025 doctoral thesis, Toward the Promised Land: Politicisation as a Pathway to Emancipatory Agricultural Transformation in Uganda, Byaruhanga argues that transforming agriculture requires confronting and disrupting the structural and political obstacles impeding change. The Ugandan government, on the other hand, dislikes uncomfortable feedback. Open protests meet state-sanctioned violence, and critical advocacy groups are routinely excluded from the political sphere. Under such conditions, a common assumption is that mobilisation either escalates into open confrontation or is neutralised altogether.
But Byaruhanga's research reveals a different pattern. Rather than engaging in confrontation, smallholder farmers and CSOs negotiate incremental policy reforms while simultaneously strengthening farmer autonomy through grassroots initiatives such as community seed banks, farmer field schools, and village savings and loan associations. With these strategies, farmers build resilience without directly challenging the state's authority.
Such efforts reflect what Byaruhanga describes as politicisation: a process through which groups challenge dominant assumptions and expand the boundaries of what is politically possible. He argues that this politicisation often unfolds through subtle, everyday practices rather than visible protest. These strategies, he notes, are "anchored in adaptive, often non-confrontational practices that balance resistance with collaboration," enabling actors to navigate political constraints while advancing alternative visions.
The findings challenge the understanding that grassroots organisations become depoliticised or co-opted when participating in decision-making on a repressive state's terms. They show how farmer groups can simultaneously engage with authorities while cultivating alternative systems from below, thereby strengthening their collective agency and expanding opportunities for change.
"These quieter forms of action can unsettle dominant power relations and sustain alternative ideas, while reducing the risks of repression or exclusion," Byaruhanga says. "At a time of ecological degradation and growing inequality, these struggles speak to global debates about how societies can pursue sustainable, just and more resilient food systems."
He finds that in societies characterised by political closure and crises, non-governmental organisations tend to drive social change rather than mass movements, emphasising the importance of recognising quieter, adaptive forms of mobilisation as meaningful expressions of politics, while remaining mindful of their limitations and vulnerabilities.
"These findings point to alternative ways of pursuing social transformation. They show that even under repression, political mobilisation does not disappear. It evolves into quieter, adaptive forms that enable actors to contest dominant systems, strengthen autonomy, and gradually reshape the possibilities for more just and sustainable agricultural development."
