What is it about?
Uganda’s refugee policy promotes own food production as a pathway to self-reliance, food access, and dietary and nutrient intake. However, new evidence shows a critical flaw: Refugee households may grow food, but they are still not getting enough nutrients they need to survive and thrive. This raises a key policy question: Does promoting own food production actually improve nutrition sufficiency among refugees? This paper examined whether what refugees produce is enough to satisfy their energy and essential micronutrient needs using the household consumption survey.
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Why is it important?
Refugee households may grow food, but they are still not getting enough nutrients they need to survive and thrive. Our findings show that cereals and tubers dominate diets, while Animal-source foods are largely absent. The vast majority of households fail to meet important energy and micronutrient requirements: 0% meet calcium needs, 99% lack sufficient energy (calories), and over 95% fall short on protein, iron, and zinc. This is not a marginal gap—it is systemic nutritional failure. Current strategies focus heavily on increasing food production, assuming it will translate into better nutrition outcomes. This assumption is flawed. Producing more does not solve micronutrient deficiencies, especially among subsistence households on small, degraded land that cannot meet full dietary needs. Without urgent policy shifts, current approaches risk sustaining hidden hunger (micronutrient deficiencies) despite ongoing investments in agriculture.
Perspectives
This study goes beyond documenting food access in refugee settings to demonstrate that own food production is a critical yet overrated pathway for improving nutrient intake adequacy and resilience among refugees in Uganda. By quantifying how household-level production contributes to closing nutrient gaps, the findings provide actionable evidence that investing in small-scale, nutrition-sensitive, and climate-resilient kitchen gardens, while key, should be embedded with other approaches. Positioned within the broader shift toward sustainable localized humanitarian responses, the study offers a practical foundation for agencies to redesign food assistance models by intergrating production based solutions that strengthen self-reliance, buffer climate shocks, increase income diversification, and market access.
Asobasi Martine
Muni University
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Contribution of own food production to household dietary diversity and nutrient intake adequacy among refugee households in Palorinya, northwestern Uganda, PLOS One, March 2026, PLOS,
DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0345810.
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