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The Potential of Permaculture in AddressingFood Insecurity in Karamoja District, Uganda

Achieving food security in its totality continues to be a challenge in developing nationsespecially those in Africa. The root cause of food insecurity in developing countries is theinability of people to gain access to food due to poverty (Pinstrup-Aderesen, 2002). While therest of the world has made significant progress towards poverty alleviation, Africa, inparticular Sub-Saharan Africa continues to lag behind.Karamoja region is not any different from other developing regions battling with foodinsecurity because of poverty and unpredictable rainfall. For quite a long point in time,Karamoja region has suffered prolonged draught due to unpredictable rain failure which hasinflicted a lot of misery to the people by making them food insecure because of little or nofood harvests. In the dawn of climate change, the situation may further deteriorate if urgentsustainable food security strategies are not introduced in Karamoja.The tasks of reverting Karamoja’s food insecurity to the same secure levels of the other partsof the country requires a shift from emergency relief distribution to sustainable selfproduction planning by the people of Karimojong. This research therefore goes out toinvestigate the potential of one sustainable strategy called Permaculture in addressing the foodinsecurity at the household level for the Karamojongs.Permaculture is a practical concept applicable from the balcony to the farm, from the city tothe wilderness. It is a design system for sustainable environments providing food, energy,shelter, material and non-material needs, as well as the social and economic infrastructuresthat support them. Permaculture means thinking carefully about our environment, our use ofresources and how we supply our needs. It aims to create systems that will sustain not onlyour present, but also future generations (PIJ, 1999).The final result of the current paper is that according to the case study, the Karamojongpracticing Permaculture are more food secure than the ordinary Karamojong. It was alsofound that the land in Karamoja is fertile and if sensitization and awareness of this concept iscarried out, Permaculture will help in reverting the current food insecurity in Karamoja in along run.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:uu-150794
Date January 2011
CreatorsMusana Namululi, Anastansia
PublisherUppsala universitet, Institutionen för geovetenskaper
Source SetsDiVA Archive at Upsalla University
LanguageEnglish
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypeStudent thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text
Formatapplication/pdf
Rightsinfo:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess

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