This article critically reflects upon conceptual and analytical questions that affect the practical implementation of food sovereignty in Uganda, a country often labelled as the potential breadbasket of Africa. It proposes to look at the integration of food and land-based social relations in the context of localised and historical–geographical specificities of livelihood practices among Acholi peasants in northern Uganda as a way to ground the concept. It argues that many of the organising principles at the core of the food sovereignty paradigm are inscribed in the socio-cultural and ecological practices of peasant populations in northern Uganda. Yet these practices are taking place in an increasingly adverse national and international environment, and under circumstances transmitted from the past, which enormously challenge their implementation and jeopardise the future of food security and sovereignty prospects for peasant agriculture.