Can food crop productivity be improved in the context of a sugarcane-based farming system?

Can the understanding of the dimensions of food and livelihood security in sugarcane — based farming systems inform the synergistic development and review of relevant policies in the food, agriculture, health, energy, trade and environment sectors? What are the social impacts of the industry in light of the various agro-ecological zones of the country? What is the gender based livelihood strategies with special emphasis on labor exploitations — child labor etc?

What do people consider as possible options for improving food and livelihood security in a sugarcane-based farming system? Do these options differ between different actors (local women and men, NGOs and government)? How do families cope with food inadequacy, inaccessibility and malnutrition?

Can the study inform the carbon credit market initiative for farming systems in Uganda through the climate smart agriculture concept? Are the proposed assessment tools appropriate for Ugandan situations and the cane-based systems in particular?

5. Conclusion

Driven by the need to meet the increasing local and regional sugar demand, and fossil fuel import substitution, cane expansion has potential negative impact on food security and biodiversity. However, this negative impact parallels the benefits related to cane cultivation. Cane biomass yield can be improved and sustained through the integrated use of various practices reported in this study. Consequently this reduces the need to expand land acreage under cane while releasing land for use in food crop productivity. The high biomass returned to the ground sequesters carbon thereby offering the opportunity for sugarcane based farmers to earn extra income through the sale of carbon credits. Trickle down effects are expected to increase household income through the production and marketing of cane based biofuel and electricity.

These developments are expected to improve the farmers purchasing power, making households to be less dependent on the land and more food secure financially.