ABSTRACT
The cooperative ideology espoused by the Uganda government stresses that cooperatives are apolitical and egalitarian. The establishment of cooperatives in Uganda reflected in varying degrees local demands to control crop marketing, but local initiative was more aggressive and sustained in Bugisu than it was in many other areas. The dependence on lineage organization enhanced the Bagisu’s willingness to entrust their crops to a new institution, but it engendered a series of organizational and political problems. The central state’s need for political control actually increased after independence. The Bagisu fought for and won the right to establish a locally controlled cooperative, and then to expand its autonomy from state supervision. The chapter describes how politics worked in the Bugisu Cooperative Union (BCU) and assesses some of their beneficial and deleterious effects. The BCU is particularly interesting, because it controls one of Uganda’s most lucrative crops.
