Special report by Witness Radio Team

In Uganda’s Kiryandongo district, a simmering land dispute has forced residents into a relentless struggle to reclaim ancestral land. They insist their family roots run deep in this soil, now swallowed by a vast agricultural estate purchased by an investor.

But the owners of Kisirizi Excellence Center (EA) Ltd, whose agricultural venture sprawls across 751 hectares, reject the residents’ claims. Renewed calls to return the land have stirred anxiety about the safety of their investment and the well-being of their farm workers.

“We fear violence. We fear for our investment and the lives of the workers on the farm,” Patrick Byabakama Kaberenge, the company’s managing director, told Witness Radio.

Kiryandongo District, nestled in Uganda’s midwest, has become a battleground for land disputes fueled by large-scale agricultural investments. In 2020, Witness Radio and its partners revealed that these projects had uprooted over 35,000 people from their land. The investigation spotlighted Kiryandongo Sugar Limited and Great Seasons SMC Limited, while in 2023, Somdiam joined the list of companies embroiled in controversial land takeovers for sugarcane cultivation.

Drawn by the district’s fertile soil, major agricultural projects have flocked to Kiryandongo, while oil development has only intensified the scramble for land. Against this backdrop, the Buhomoozi Parish dispute raises urgent questions: How are residents’ land rights safeguarded when new owners take over?

In Buhomoozi Parish, Kigumba Sub-county, the land dispute has ignited passionate demands from residents who say their families have called this land home for generations. Meanwhile, the investor now farming the contested property is seeking government protection for what he believes is rightfully his.

At the heart of the conflict are land deals involving businessman Mutebi Amans Kibibi and Byabakama with his partners. Residents allege these transactions triggered the eviction of over 500 people from their homes.

Documents seen by Witness Radio confirm that Byabakama holds a registered title to the property he claims to have bought from Mutebi. Yet residents challenge the registration’s legitimacy, arguing it now covers land their families have lived on for decades.

Asiimwe Moses Mwendwa, representing some affected residents, told Witness Radio that shifting land ownership and altered mapping have tangled claims and erased cherished community land.

Asiimwe maintained that the Church of God of East Africa and a property associated with Captain Omar Muhammed occupied separate parcels, with community land lying between them.

“We cannot now trace our origin. Our land was not titled, but it existed. People were living on it. When the rich men came in 2004, they evicted us and took it,” he said.

Asiimwe described the disputed land as a 500-acre stretch nestled between two registered properties: Plot 30 at Kisirizi Mixed Farm, owned by Captain Omar Muhammed, and a parcel at Kinyoga-Kaduku under the Church of God of East Africa.

Asiimwe recounted that the trouble began when Mutebi Kibibi acquired two titled properties that flanked land occupied by residents without formal titles. Rather than leaving the community land intact, Mutebi allegedly forced out the residents in 2014 and absorbed their land into a single, consolidated property.

Residents say this process wiped away the boundaries of land their families had known for generations, leaving them homeless and dispossessed. They allege that Byabakama and his partners later took over the property, insisting they bought a single registered parcel from Mutebi.

“Some people had occupied the land since the 1930s. It was terrible. People were evicted, some were beaten, and others lost their lives,” he told Witness Radio.

These allegations raise urgent questions about protecting customary land rights, the murky circumstances of land transfers, and the ethical duties of businesses acquiring contested property.

Uganda’s Constitution protects property rights and prohibits torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment. The Land Act, 1998, also recognizes customary tenure, including rights that may arise from family and communal land arrangements. The application of these protections to the disputed property depends on the facts and the relevant legal records.

At the international level, the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights establish that businesses have a responsibility to respect human rights, avoid causing or contributing to adverse impacts and address harms in which they are involved. The principles also emphasize access to effective remedies for people whose rights have been violated.

Desperate for justice, the affected residents petitioned the State House Lands Unit, urging the government to step in and resolve the dispute.

The State House Lands Unit, which handles land matters, became the residents’ last hope. They hoped this intervention would untangle the competing claims and determine whether the investor’s title truly covered their ancestral land.

Mr. Osaja Peter, a 61-year-old community leader and land defender who says he was born on the disputed land, told Witness Radio that a State House team conducted a site visit and made a decision concerning the dispute.

“A locus visit was done by State House and led by counsel Susan Abbo, and the ruling was that Byabakama should go back on the land that he bought,” Osaja said.

Yet the details and current status of the alleged ruling remain unclear.

Peter recalled that his grandfather settled in Kaduku II, Kigumba, back in the late 1930s. He claims his family lost nearly 70 acres in the turmoil of the disputed takeover.

“At that time, over 500 people were evicted from our land, which covered the three villages of Nyama I, Kaduku II and Kinyonga II. We just saw the bullets, and when people see bullets, they run away. Some have remained lame, while others died because of injuries. Many are struggling to rebuild their lives,” he said.

Mr. Byabakama, now 70 and once the acting deputy governor of the Bank of Uganda, said he and 30 partners founded Kisirizi Excellence Center (EA) Ltd with a vision for commercial farming, focusing on animal husbandry.

“We wanted to do commercial farming,” he told Witness Radio.

In 2006, Byabakama and his partners purchased land at Kisirizi, Plot 80, Block 9, measuring about 751 hectares, from Mutebi Kibibi.

According to documents reviewed by Witness Radio, Omari Mohamed had previously mortgaged the land, but allegedly failed to meet the loan obligations. Uganda Development Bank subsequently exercised its powers under the mortgage arrangement and sold the property to Mutebi Kibibi.

Before sealing the deal, Byabakama said he and his partners conducted thorough due diligence, inspected the land, and confirmed its boundaries with local leaders and community members.

“We spent around three days inspecting the land. Apart from the seller, Mr Mutebi, there was no other person occupying the said land,” he said.

Byabakama said an independent surveyor, Angellus Mawa of Geomaps, opened the boundaries in the presence of community members and local leaders, including then Kigumba Sub-county LC III chairperson Mary Matunda and other officials.

He explained that this careful inspection, combined with checks at the land office, reassured the partners that the property was safe to buy.

“Upon confirming that there were no registered encumbrances on the land at the land office, we agreed to buy the land from Mutebi,” he said.

Yet the residents tell a different story. They allege their land once lay between two registered properties, but was swept up into the land Mutebi acquired and eventually passed to Byabakama.

The affected families formally brought the dispute to the State House Lands Unit’s attention.

In a letter dated July 2023, Susan Obbo, Senior Private Secretary to the President in Charge of Land Matters, invited Byabakama to a meeting on allegations that residents occupied land between two registered properties.

The letter identified one property as Plot 30 at Kisirizi Mixed Farm, associated with Omar Mohammed, and the other as Plot 66, Block 9, at Kinyogonya-Kaduku, registered in the name of the Church of God of East Africa.

According to the letter, the petitioners alleged that Mutebi and Byabakama had acquired the two properties, Kisirizi Mixed Farm and the Church of God of East Africa, and incorporated the intervening land occupied by residents, despite the community’s claims that the land had previously existed as a separate area with identifiable boundaries.

The letter further stated that the petitioners did not object to the purchase of the two registered properties but alleged that the intervening community land had been incorporated into them, resulting in the eviction of residents.

In response to the State House letter, Byabakama disputed the allegation that he had acquired multiple parcels or participated in an amalgamation of community land.

In a response submitted on behalf of the investor, his representatives, H&G Advocates, said their client acquired a single registered parcel identified as LRV 1759, Folio 15, Plot 80, Kibanda Block 9, at Kisirizi, along Masindi Port Road.

“Our client does not know about the alleged amalgamation of two land parcels mentioned in your letter or the persons who allegedly occupied an untitled parcel of land between two alleged titled parcels. Our client bought a single parcel of land comprised in LRV 1759, Folio 15, Plot 80, Kibanda Block 9, at Kisirizi, Masindi Port Road, Masindi. This can be verified from the land office,” the response stated.

Byabakama also said that after the company began commercial farming, nine people complained that a previous owner had given them extremely short notice to vacate their homes before the 2006 purchase.

He said the company asked why the complainants had not pursued the previous owner in court but agreed to help them maintain peaceful relations with neighboring communities.

According to the company’s response to State House, the partners agreed between 2006 and 2009 to provide the nine complainants with household resources and some land for cultivation, with the assistance of local leaders. The company said it believed it had no legal obligation to settle the claims.

But this response left the residents’ deeper grievances unresolved, especially their claims about lost boundaries and the absorption of their land into the registered property.

A State House official, who spoke to Witness Radio on condition of anonymity, said the matter remained under investigation.

“People are saying the land had two titles initially, and that Byabakama’s title overlapped with the others. They have no problem with Byabakama; rather, they have an issue with Mutebi, who sold the land to Byabakama. The land in the middle was also titled with the larger part and also got taken,” the official said.

The official explained that authorities plan to retrace the boundaries of the old properties and compare them with the land now under Byabakama’s title.

“We are going to open the boundaries of the former titles and compare them with his title to find out the truth. We will inform you once the investigations are complete,” the official said.

Former Kigumba Sub-county LC III chairperson Mary Matunda, meanwhile, told Witness Radio that the alleged evictions and burning of houses occurred before Byabakama acquired the property.

She said local leaders knew the incidents happened when Mutebi owned the land and argued that Byabakama and its partners should not be blamed for actions that allegedly took place before their purchase.

Byabakama said the company coexisted peacefully with neighboring communities until residents reignited their demands to return the disputed land.

For the families caught in the dispute, this is about far more than lines on a map. It is about ancestral land, lost homes, shattered livelihoods, and community bonds built over generations that are unraveling.

“What we have suffered is enough. Let the injustices that occurred be solved,” the residents said, vowing to continue pursuing their claims.

For Byabakama and his partners, the dispute casts a shadow over an agricultural investment they insist was acquired lawfully and with careful due diligence.

Now, the fate of the land hangs on the State House Land Unit’s findings from its investigation into the tangled history of transfers and boundaries.

Until those questions are resolved, the residents’ demands and the investor’s defense remain in conflict, leaving the future of the disputed land uncertain.

By the Witness Radio team.

Africa grapples with some of the world’s most severe food security challenges. Today, 309 million people go hungry—outnumbering even Asia’s 292 million. The continent pours between US$70 billion and US$100 billion annually into food imports.

Despite decades of effort by governments, development partners, and countless organizations to improve agriculture and uplift smallholder farmers, these challenges remain. A flagship initiative, the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA), launched in 2006 with backing from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation, now marks two decades of striving to transform African agriculture.

In a statement marking its 20th anniversary this year, the organization described the milestone as an opportunity to reflect on two decades of working with governments, farmers, research institutions, the private sector and development partners to strengthen Africa’s food systems.

Yet African faith leaders argue the initiative has fallen short of its promise to reduce hunger and improve food security. They are now demanding that the Gates Foundation be held accountable for the consequences of the agricultural model it has championed.

On Thursday, October 29, 2026, faith leaders from more than 20 African countries held an online press conference after delivering an open letter to the Gates Foundation on October 28.

The letter, titled African Faith Leaders Demand Reparations from the Gates Foundation and signed by 625 faith leaders with backing from 360 organizations and partners, urges the Foundation to provide reparations and shift its funding toward smallholder farmers, indigenous seeds, healthy soils, and agroecological farming systems.

The leaders contend that AGRA’s Green Revolution approach has failed to tackle hunger and, worse, has eroded food sovereignty and weakened communities’ control over their own food systems.

They add that AGRA has received more than US$1.5 billion since its establishment, with approximately two-thirds of the funding coming from the Gates Foundation.

“The Green Revolution promised to halve hunger. Instead, 55 million more people in AGRA’s focus countries are going hungry today than when it began,” said Ms. Francesca de Gasparis, Executive Director of the Southern African Faith Communities’ Environment Institute (SAFCEI).

“When a strategy fails this badly, for this long, continuing to fund it perpetuates harm. We are calling on the Gates Foundation to take the independent research seriously and change its approach,” Ms. de Gasparis added.

The leaders’ concerns are informed by research from Tufts University and the Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa (AFSA), which found that the number of undernourished people in AGRA’s 13 focus countries increased by 58% between 2004–2006 and 2022–2024.

AGRA has pushed back against these findings, challenging both the research and its methodology. This debate has reignited doubts about whether two decades of investment have truly improved livelihoods and food security for Africa’s smallholder farmers.

In the online discussions that followed the letter’s launch, faith leaders urged the Gates Foundation, AGRA, African governments, and development partners to place the sovereignty and well-being of African people at the heart of all agricultural investments.

“African people must be the architects of their own agricultural future. The church does not oppose science but demands science that saves lives,” said Rev. Dr. Tolbert Thomas Jallah, a faith leader from Liberia.

Rev. Dr. Jallah said science must serve humanity, innovation must serve the public good, and technology should strengthen communities’ ability to feed themselves.

The faith leaders said they had previously raised similar concerns with the Gates Foundation. In 2021, they wrote to the Foundation asking it to stop funding Green Revolution programs. SAFCEI said it later met with Foundation representatives, but those engagements did not result in a meaningful response to their concerns.

The press conference brought together representatives from Liberia, Kenya, Botswana, Namibia, Malawi, Zimbabwe and South Africa, while the letter’s signatories came from more than 20 countries across West, East and Southern Africa.

The faith leaders also voiced concerns about how corporate-driven agriculture affects women, who are the backbone of food production and household food security throughout Africa.

Ms. Josephina Ngishoono, representing the Namibia Council of Churches, emphasized that women shoulder much of the burden when agricultural systems put commercial interests ahead of the needs of farming communities.

She pointed out that while women are major contributors to food production, they still face unequal access to land, resources, agricultural knowledge, and decision-making power.

“Corporate-led agriculture that prioritizes patented seeds, chemical inputs, as well as monoculture, risks undermining the women’s traditional knowledge systems, the agroecological practices that have been passed down from generations,” Ms. Ngishoono said.

She warned that when women lose control over seeds and farming decisions, their financial independence and their power to choose what and how to grow food for their families are put at risk.

She called for women to be recognized as agricultural leaders in their own right, not just as passive beneficiaries of development programs.

She further urged the Gates Foundation to champion community seed banks, indigenous seeds, community-managed seed systems, composting, soil restoration, and research led by local communities in agroecology.

“There is a need to protect farmers’ rights and their seed sovereignty and to prioritize public health, environmental health, and long-term food security,” she said.

Ms. Gorata Ramokgothwane of the Botswana Council of Churches highlighted how climate change relentlessly undermines food sovereignty and food security throughout sub-Saharan Africa.

She voiced alarm over the push for farming systems that rely heavily on chemical inputs, cautioning that these methods could damage fragile ecosystems and erode traditional farming practices.

Speaking for women faith leaders, Ms. Ramokgothwane called for a powerful regional movement to advance community-led agroecology throughout Southern Africa.

“As councils of churches in the region, we must identify and intensify our efforts in resource mobilization towards grassroots solidarity in advancing indigenous or traditional preservation,” she said.

She pointed to communities in Botswana that use leadwood ash to preserve seeds for beans, millet, and sorghum, showcasing these traditions as vital knowledge that can fortify local food systems.

“Some communities have resorted to seed banks dedicated to preserving native staples, such as millet, sorghum, beans, and some traditional vegetables,” she added.

Ms. Ramokgothwane said these methods could empower communities to break free from costly agricultural inputs, safeguard indigenous foods, and sustain ecological balance.

She also cautioned that women smallholder farmers are especially at risk when input prices soar or harvests fall short of covering costs. She added that restrictive seed laws can further limit farmers’ ability to save and share traditional seeds.

“As women of faith and leaders in our communities, we know that the Gates Foundation has the moral obligation to independently analyze the needs of smallholder farmers and support the seed-saving practices in irrigation for smallholder farmers,” she said.

Muslim faith leaders in Africa were also represented at the discussions by Dr Sheik Hassan Kenyamari, Chairman of Muslim Provinces in Africa.

Dr Kenyamari voiced unease about the direction, priorities, and lasting consequences of agricultural innovations backed by the Gates Foundation, especially through its partnership with AGRA.

He insisted that Africa’s agricultural transformation must put farmers, communities, ecological integrity, and the right to food above narrow productivity goals and commercial interests.

AGRA, however, rejects claims that its agricultural model has failed, arguing that its progress over the past 20 years should be assessed against the broader challenges facing African food systems.

In its August 2026 Impact, Learning and Foresight Report, the organization says agricultural output across Africa has roughly doubled in real terms since 2005, while cereal yields have increased by about 40%.

It also points to the growth of local seed companies, agricultural input distribution networks and community extension services as evidence of progress.