Politicising agricultural transformation through farmer groups’ everyday collective practices

Abstract

Farmer collectives, such as farmer groups, play a crucial role in advancing struggles for inclusive and sustainable rural development. Yet their potential to influence agricultural policies and practices remains undervalued. Drawing on focus group discussions with farmer groups in northern Uganda, we examine how their routine collective practices function as critical mechanisms for cultivating viable but often overlooked social, economic, and ecological alternatives. These groups create structures for contesting dominant agrarian ideologies and arenas for advancing smallholder-friendly agricultural practices. Using the theoretical lens of everyday forms of politics, our analysis shows how farmer-led activities such as community seed banks, farmer field schools, and village savings and loan associations reflect both resistance to neoliberal paradigms that favour market-driven growth, and aspirations for alternative agrarian futures centered on social equity and ecological sustainability. The latter materializes in advancing agricultural visions that are more socially just, economically inclusive, and ecologically resilient. Although we frame these actions as subtle expressions of political agency, they clearly embody latent potential to catalyze more explicit forms of politicisation within agricultural transformation. However, continued reliance on external actors, particularly non-governmental organisations, risks eroding the long-term autonomy and sustainability of these initiatives. Enhancing internal leadership and grassroots capacity is therefore critical to securing the self-determination and resilience of farmer-led efforts.