Reimagining Uganda’s food future: From assessment to action in sustainable systems

Reimagining Uganda’s food future: From assessment to action in sustainable systems

2468-2276

Scientific African
26.6.25

English

23 pp.

338 Ad27

Ensuring the long-term resilience of food systems has become increasingly critical due to factors such as rapid population growth, climate-related disruptions, environmental degradation, and persistent poverty. This study evaluated Uganda’s Food System Sustainability Index (FSSI) over the period from 2000 to 2023 by constructing a composite metric based on 24 indicators that reflect four core dimensions: environment, social, economy, and food and nutrition security. A standardized method known as the “min-max scaling” approach was employed to normalize the data, giving equal weight to each indicator across the different categories. The findings show that Uganda performed best in the environmental dimension, which recorded a sustainability score of 0.60. Meanwhile, the social and food & nutrition security aspects both scored 0.41, and the economic component lagged with the lowest score of 0.31. The overall FSSI for 2023 was calculated at 0.40, significantly below the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) benchmark of 0.75 for adequate sustainability. These results point to the urgent need for targeted policy reforms that focus on strengthening the weaker components of Uganda’s food system. As the country’s food demand is projected to rise with a growing population, strategic interventions must prioritize integrated approaches that enhance positive interactions between system components while addressing inevitable trade-offs.

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