Disentangling Inequality and Exploitation in the Rice Value Chain in Northern Uganda

Abstract

Although inequality between actors in agricultural value chains has been extensively studied, informal and semiformal arrangements in domestic value chains involving small‐scale actors have been explored less than formal arrangements involving large firms. This study contributes to this literature, firstly, by suggesting a novel analytical framework for analysing inequality and exploitation and the agency of actors within an unequal value‐chain relationship; and secondly, by applying it to the relationship between rice millers and rice farmers in Gulu in northern Uganda, i.e., to one node in a larger rice value chain. This study explores this relationship in a situation of high levels of competition between millers, potentially strengthening farmers' bargaining power. The form and degree of inequality and exploitation in the relationship are analytically disentangled by applying the analytical framework, combining Graeber's conceptualization of exchange and hierarchy with Snyder's definitions of exploitation. The study shows that, although the relationship is still characterized by inequality and has exploitative features, farmers can and do exit from the relationship.

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