Understanding dynamism of land ownership, use and patterns of allocation for the locals before inviting foreign investors: the Ugandan case

Although Uganda has been attracting foreign direct investment on land, queries’ has been raised on the implications of such efforts to existing challenges related to land tenure, ownership and smallholding. While the existing challenges have been associated with declining agricultural sector performance, little is known on the dynamism of land holding, crops’ allocations and drivers of change. Using Uganda National Household Survey (UNHS) 2005/6 and 2009/10 data collected by UBoS across the country, we examine dynamism on landholding, cropping patterns and land allocations to various major crops by farming households. Fractional multinomial logit model was used to estimates determinants of households’ land allocation to various major crops. Smallholding was observed to constraints agricultural production with 54 and 41 percent of households resulting to using land they lacked ownership rights on in 2005 and 2009 respectively. Result has also shown that cultivation of land without ownership rights has been on decrease from 29 to 7 percent in 2005 and 2009 respectively. Across subregions, households in Central 1, Eastern and Western were by 2009 cultivating more than a fifth of the total land which they lacked ownership rights. Although a slight increase (0.001ha) in land ownership was observed between 2005 and 2009, cultivated area declined by 0.004ha. On average households were cultivating 1.7 ha and had ownership rights to 1.5 ha by 2009. Households cultivate a number of crops with each being allocated small proportion of land. Although cropping patterns has remained the same, sweet potatoes was allocated larger proportions of land as cultivated land declined. Significant factors that affected proportional of land allocated to various crops included sub‐regional dummies, access to infrastructure, households’ stock of education and cultivated area. It is recommended that the government should intervene in guiding land ownership process that ensures households access land sizes that guarantee economic viable agricultural production.