Masindi – President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni has issued a firm directive to Prime Minister Rt. Hon. Robinah Nabbanja to immediately operationalize the Sugar Act and take decisive action against land grabbing cases that continue to frustrate communities across Bunyoro and other sugarcane growing regions.
The President made the remarks on Wednesday while addressing thousands of supporters in Masindi during his ongoing nationwide campaign trail. He said sugarcane farmers have endured years of exploitation, unfair pricing and coercive practices by dominant millers, an imbalance the Sugar Act was designed to correct but which has persisted due to weak enforcement.
For more than a decade, Uganda’s sugar industry has been mired in what farmers commonly describe as a “Sugar War,” a prolonged struggle between smallholder out growers and a few powerful millers often referred to as the Big Four. These millers exercised overwhelming control over cane pricing structures, weighing processes, payment timelines and market access, leaving farmers with little bargaining power.
As a result, many farmers faced routine under weighing of cane at mill owned weighbridges, delayed payments that sometimes stretched for months, prices set unilaterally by millers, exclusion from policy discussions and total dependence on single buyers. This imbalance pushed many farming households into cycles of poverty and indebtedness, particularly in Busoga, Bunyoro, Buganda and several northern districts.
To address these challenges, Parliament enacted the Sugar Act as a long awaited reform tool aimed at regulating relations between millers and farmers, protecting out growers from exploitation, establishing independent and community owned weighbridges, ensuring fair and transparent cane pricing, defining zoning rules to reduce conflicts, and promoting competition among millers to stabilize prices. However, despite the law being in place, its impact has remained limited due to slow implementation and resistance from entrenched industry players.
President Museveni’s latest directive signals a renewed push to break that stalemate.
Farmers point to the entry of Victoria Sugar Ltd in Luweero as a major shift in the industry’s balance of power. Many describe it as the first significant break from miller monopoly. Unlike traditional players, the company introduced practices aligned with the spirit of the Sugar Act, demonstrating what a farmer centered milling model can achieve.
According to growers, Victoria Sugar improved cane prices, prompting competitive pressure across the industry and restoring profitability to cane farming. The company also supported the establishment of community owned weighbridges, allowing farmer groups to manage their own weighing points and eliminating long standing disputes linked to miller controlled scales. Farmers further report prompt or near instant payments, reducing financial stress and ending the uncertainty that previously characterized the sector.
In addition, the company introduced transparent supply chain practices, including open weighing systems, clear documentation and direct communication with farmers. Its approach to customer care through field officers, help desks and regular engagement forums has helped farmers feel supported and respected. Beyond milling, Victoria Sugar has also invested in local infrastructure, training programs, agricultural inputs and community welfare initiatives, contributions that were previously rare in the industry.
Many observers note that the company’s operations closely mirror the objectives of the Sugar Act, particularly in promoting fairness, transparency, competition and farmer protection. This has increased public pressure on other millers to comply with the law.
During the Masindi rally, President Museveni warned that the period of negotiation or resistance had come to an end.
“Our people must be protected. The Sugar Act must be enforced immediately to stop exploitation of sugarcane farmers,” he said.
He tasked Prime Minister Nabbanja with fast tracking the implementation of the Sugar Act, ensuring millers comply with fair pricing and weighing procedures, resolving long standing land conflicts that fuel instability in sugar producing areas, and safeguarding the rights of out growers from predatory practices. He emphasized that communities should benefit from the sugar industry rather than suffer because of it.
With the President’s directive, farmers are hopeful that the long running Sugar War may finally tilt toward justice. Victoria Sugar’s interventions are now widely viewed as a benchmark for responsible milling and a practical blueprint for national reform under a fully enforced Sugar Act. If implemented decisively, the law could usher in a new era where transparency becomes standard, farmers regain bargaining power and exploitation in the sugar sector becomes a thing of the past.
