A few days ago on TV news, I watched prime minister Robinah Nabbanja flag off 9.4 million kilograms of relief food, mainly maize flour and beans, for the people of Karamoja following a prolonged drought (dry conditions from the beginning of the year) that has pushed thousands of families into food insecurity, abject poverty, hunger and even death.
According to the Office of the Prime Minister, the relief is intended to support more than 300,000 households affected by crop failure and depleted food stocks. The images of hunger in Karamoja are both heartbreaking and thought-provoking.
Uganda is not a country suffering from an overall shortage of food. In many districts such as Masindi, Kiryandongo and other agricultural subregions such as Busoga, farmers have continued to produce surplus grain.
Uganda remains one of East Africa’s major food producers and exporters. This raises an important question; if food exists elsewhere in the country, why are people starving in Karamoja?
The answer reveals one of the limitations of capitalism as a mechanism for distributing essential goods. Markets are highly effective at connecting buyers and sellers when both supply and purchasing power exist.
However, when people lack the income to buy what they need, markets can fail to meet basic human needs. In economic terms, Karamoja’s challenge is not merely a food supply problem. It is an “effective demand” problem.
Grain traders can sell maize in Kampala, Jinja, Gulu or across the border in Kenya because buyers can pay. But for households facing crop failure, loss of livestock and declining incomes, demand exists only as a human need, not as purchasing power.
Private traders therefore have little commercial incentive to transport food into areas where many people cannot afford it. This is where government intervention becomes essential.
The prime minister noted that much of the relief food is being sourced from commercial farms operated by the Uganda People’s Defence Forces (UPDF) and the Uganda Prisons Service. While the quoted price of approximately Shs 2,800 per kilogram may appear lower than private sector offers, it is worth remembering that these institutions operate with significant public support through the national budget.
Their true production costs may therefore be higher than they appear on paper. Nevertheless, that is not the central issue. The important point is that no private company can reasonably be expected to solve a humanitarian crisis when there is little prospect of profit.
The primary responsibility for protecting vulnerable citizens rests with the state. Emergency food relief, social protection programmes, strategic grain reserves, irrigation investments and climate resilience projects are all examples of interventions that governments undertake because markets alone often cannot.
Karamoja’s recurring food crises also remind us that economic efficiency and human welfare are not always the same thing. A free market may allocate goods efficiently according to purchasing power, but it does not guarantee that every citizen will eat.
In times of crisis, government must step in to bridge that gap. The food being dispatched to Karamoja is therefore more than humanitarian assistance. It is a reminder that while markets create wealth, governments exist to protect society when markets fall short.
No Ugandan should go hungry simply because they cannot afford the food that is available elsewhere in the country. In that respect, the government’s intervention is not a failure of capitalism. It is a necessary correction to one of its most enduring limitations.
The author is a concerned citizen.