Without more research and action, the ubiquity of plastic bags risks will continue to undermine the health of the soil and people in Uganda.
Unlike other East African countries, Uganda has failed to enforce the bans on single-use plastic bags. They continue to be produced and circulated at an alarming scale. Plastic bags, locally known as kaveeras, are everywhere. As a result, microplastic accumulation in agricultural soils continues. The long term implications for soil health, crop quality, and consequently for local food systems and food security, are conveniently ignored.
More than 66% of Ugandans are employed in agriculture, with close to 72% of land cover under agricultural use. Farming operations are done primarily by small holder farmers whose livelihoods face substantial threats from the changing climate and deteriorating soil productivity.
Climate adaptation in agriculture has emerged as a key concern among development actors and governments across the continent. The Ugandan government, too, has enthusiastically endorsed several local and foreign initiatives of climate-smart agriculture and agroecological farming systems. These endorsements have not always been accompanied by the enforcement of enabling policies that aim to minimise the threats and hazards farmers face in the first place. Plastic pollution is one area often overlooked in this context.
The Uganda government first introduced a ban on single use plastic bags in 2007, and again in 2009, 2015, 2018 and 2021. These prohibited the import, export, local manufacture, and use of plastic products made of polythene below 30 microns. Despite these policies, enforcement of the kaveera ban has been inconsistent and largely ineffective. Plastic bags continue to be manufactured and distributed widely for local use, as well as smuggled to neighbouring countries. In urban areas, they clog drainage systems and litter public spaces once disposed of. Across the country, they continue to accumulate in water bodies and farmland.
Gulu city in northern Uganda, where I live, serves as a good example of the mundane prevalence of plastic bags, not only in people's lives but also in the natural environment and agricultural soils. Here, plastic bags feature prominently in food distribution but also in social relationships and the popular imagination. People living in poverty cannot afford food in bulk, and so they buy items daily, in small portions. Kaveera play a crucial role in the portioning of food items by vendors.
At Gulu Main Market, the typical scene at evening rush hours is lines of vendors seated at the parking area, with their inventory laid out. Next to the goods are packets of kaveera. It is unimaginable to hand a customer, say, tomatoes that are not first packed in at least one plastic bag. By the time one leaves the market, they hold several kaveeras with food stuff. There is dignity in arriving home with a kaveera and is implicitly expected of all visitors and providers.
Plastic, alongside other waste, is often burned in homes or discarded in the environment immediately after use. It ends up in watersheds and gardens, where it is often ploughed into the soil. Plastic waste, including kaveera, is slowly broken down through photodegradation, only to create microplastics (tiny particles of plastic, hardly visible to the naked eye). These small fragments persist in the environment and can be absorbed into the soil.
A short walk in any direction around Gulu city gets you out of the centre quickly. Here, urban agriculture is flourishing - all sorts of it: beautifully tended maize or banana gardens, bushy sweet potato ridges, neat rows of tomato and cabbage. But gardens are consistently, and as if deliberately, littered with kaveera at different stages of breakdown, sprinkled at different rates, some more generously than others. In the planting season, plastic looks like the main crop growing in some gardens. The little maize shoots germinating might as well be weeds in a garden of kaveera.
Farmers and policymakers have very little information on the long-term implications of plastic pollution for soil health. There is very limited research on the subject, especially in African countries. Existing studies indicate that microplastics can interfere with soil fauna and structure, water retention, and nutrient cycling. There is also evidence that plastic particles can be absorbed into crops, transported via their roots to leaves and fruits, and eventually be ingested by humans and livestock.
Despite these threats, in Uganda, the kaveera persists, if not thrives, countrywide. The economy of subsistence purchases and petty trade relies on the constant circulation of kaveera, but the by-product of this circulation is massive volumes of plastic refuse which destroys the very agricultural soils that produce the food being traded in the first place. In other words, the kaveera is choking the very food system that it helps sustain.
Sign up for free AllAfrica Newsletters
Get the latest in African news delivered straight to your inbox
Where agroecology and other regenerative uses of natural resources are increasingly promoted among individual small-holder farmers to mitigate the impacts of climate change and manage soil health, national policies should not enable wholesale environmental destruction in the name of industrialisation.
For agroecological practices and climate resilient agriculture to be truly effective, there must be a deliberate effort to understand and address the adverse impact of anthropogenic activities, including soil contamination from plastics. Community action and initiatives are essential in this context, but so are rigorous research, evidence-based policies, and their enforcement.
Piloya Innocent is a farmer and agroecology entrepreneur based in Gulu, Uganda.
