"Agribusiness on rise in north Uganda region where rebels fought"

For nearly two decades, the Lord's Resistance Army stalked the grasslands of north Uganda...Now at peace, the land is being put to a new use: large-scale agriculture...Investors have poured tens of millions of dollars into a landscape now dotted with tracts of maize, rice, sunflower, sesame and commercial forests..."Northern Uganda has the potential to become the bread basket for not only Uganda but even for East Africa," Martin Maugustini, country manager for Afgri Uganda (AU), a unit of South African agribusiness giant Afgri Limited, told Reuters...

But resentment is on the rise against the investors many locals see as outsiders grabbing land that is rightfully theirs...Rows over who actually owns the land has hampered some plans. A $100-million, 40,000-acre sugar plantation and processing plant by the Madhvani Group...stalled due to a land ownership dispute...Amatheon Agri Uganda Ltd (AAUL), a unit of Berlin-based Amatheon Agri Group, attracted by the region's "rich and virgin agricultural land," negotiated leases directly with owners directly rather than going through the government, as Madhvani had done. But that process can be tricky, especially as much of the land lacks clear titles of ownership. [also refers to Gulu Agricultural Development