Organic Agriculture and Food Security in Africa pot

i
United Nations Conference on Trade and Development
United Nations Environment Programme
Organic Agriculture and
Food Security in
Africa
United Nations
New York and Geneva, 2008
UNEP-UNCTAD Capacity-building Task Force
on Trade, Environment and Development
ii
Note
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The designations employed and the presentation of the material in this publication do not imply
the expression of any opinion whatsoever on the part of the Secretariat of the United Nations
concerning the legal status of any country, territory, city or area, or of its authorities, or concerning
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Material in this publication may be freely quoted or reprinted, but acknowledgement is requested,
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quotation or reprint should be sent to the UNCTAD secretariat (c/o Administrative Secretary,
Division on International Trade in Goods and Services, and Commodities, Palais des Nations,
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UNCTAD/DITC/TED/2007/15
UNITED NATIONS PUBLICATION

Copyright © United Nations, 2008
All rights reserved
iii
Foreword
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Despite global pledges, the recent report of the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Right
to Food highlighted that the number of people suffering from hunger has increased every year
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Feeding over 6 billion people – and over 9 billion by 2050 – will require a wide range of creative,
sustainable agricultural systems which not only provide food, but also factor in the economic value
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The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) and the United Nations
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Environment and Development (CBTF), take food security very seriously and have joined forces
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This study examines the relationship between organic agriculture and food security in Africa,
particularly East Africa, which is where the CBTF has been implementing a project on organic
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The evidence presented in this study supports the argument that organic agriculture can be more
conducive to food security in Africa than most conventional production systems, and that it is
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Therefore, we encourage policymakers and development cooperation partners in Africa and
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not only improved food security, but also an array of other economic, environmental, health and

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Supachai Panitchpakdi Achim Steiner
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Acknowledgements
This study was prepared by Rachel Hine and Jules Pretty, University of Essex and Sophia Twarog
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Trade and Sustainable Development Section, Division on International Trade, UNCTAD, Palais
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Sophia Twarog (UNCTAD) and Asad Naqvi (UNEP/CBTF) oversaw the publication process under
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Bhalla (consultant to UNCTAD), Paul Stephenson (UNCTAD), Michael Gibson (UNCTAD) and
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Ouahidi (UNEP), Desirée Leon (UNEP) and Rahila Mughal (UNEP) provided administrative
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The authors are grateful to the following for contributing valuable information and insights to
the study:
Peter Murage, Mount Kenya Organic Farm (MOOF), Kenya;
J Ngugi Mutura, Sustainable Agriculture Community Development Programme
(SACDEP), Kenya;
Charles Wasonga, Environmental Action Team (EAT), Kenya;
Donati Alex Senzia, Participatory Ecological Land Use Management (PELUM),
United Republic of Tanzania;
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Zia R Khan, International Centre of Insect Physiology and Ecology (ICIPE), Kenya;
Moses Muwanga, National Organic Agricultural Movement of Uganda (NOGAMU),
Uganda;
Jordan Gama, Tanzania Organic Agriculture Movement (TOAM), United Republic

of Tanzania;
Eustace Kiarii, Kenya Organic Agriculture Network (KOAN), Kenya;
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Ulrich Hoffmann, UNCTAD;
Fulai Sheng, UNEP;
Benjamin Simmons, UNEP;
Gunnar Rundgren, Grolink, Sweden;
Hervé Bouagnimbeck, International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements
(IFOAM); and
Participants in the CBTF East African Organic Agriculture Initiative who provided
feedback on the terms of reference and drafts of this paper when they were presented
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Steering Committee: From Kenya: Naftali Ndugire, National Environment Management
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Republic of Tanzania: Geoffrey Kirenga and Adah Mwasha, Ministry of Agriculture, Food
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Uganda: Florence Kata, Ben Naturinda and Bosco Okello, Ugandan Export Promotion
Board; Moses Muwanga, NOGAMU; and Godber Tumushabe, Advocates Coalition on
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The CBTF East African Organic Agriculture Initiative activities were made possible through
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Contents
Acknowledgements iv
Acronyms vi
Executive summary vi
i
Section 1. Overview 1
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Section 2. Evidence from Africa 11
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2.1.1 Improvements in availability of food 11
2.1.2 Improvements to natural capital 12
2.1.3 Improvements to social capital 13
2.1.4 Improvements to human capital 13
2.1.5 Improvements to physical capital 14

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2.1.7 Improvements to external factors 15
2.1.8 Summary 15
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2.4.1 The Manor House Agricultural Centre, Kitale, Kenya 19
2.4.2 Organic cotton, GTZ, United Republic of Tanzania 19
2.4.3 SACDEP, Thika, Kenya 20
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2.4.5 C-MAD programme, Kenya 22
2.4.6 Small-scale aquaculture in Malawi 22
2.4.7 ICIPE YXWXVXNXPX (push-pull) pest management, Kenya 23
2.4.8 Ethiopia: Cheha integrated rural development project 24
2.4.9 MEFE project, Kakamega, Kenya 25
2.4.10 LOMADEF, Lipangwe, Malawi 25
2.4.11 Organic cashews and vegetables in Mkuranga district,
United Republic of Tanzania 26
2.4.12 Soil and crop productivity improvements, EAT, Kenya 27
2.4.13 PEEST project, Iganga district, Uganda 29
2.4.14 MOOF, Kenya 30
2.4.15 PELUM, United Republic of Tanzania 31
2.4.16 Discussion of evidence 32
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2.5.1 Knowledge 34
2.5.2 Support and infrastructure 35
2.5.3 Winners and losers 36
2.5.4 Gender, employment, health and land tenure issues 36
2.5.5 External factors 36

2.5.6 Participatory development policies for organic agriculture 37
Section 3. Conclusions 39
References 41
Annex: Main stakeholders in the organic sector in Kenya, United Republic
of Tanzania and Uganda 47
vi
Acronyms
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Development
&0$' &RPPXQLW\0RELOL]DWLRQ$JDLQVW'HVHUWL¿FDWLRQ
CSO civil society organization
EAOPS East African Organic Products Standard
EAT Environmental Action Team
EPOPA Export Promotion of Organic Products from Africa
FAO Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations
+,9$,'6 KXPDQLPPXQRGH¿FLHQF\YLUXVDFTXLUHGLPPXQRGH¿FLHQF\V\QGURPH
IAASTD International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for
Development
ICIPE International Centre for Insect Physiology and Ecology
ICLARM International Center for Living Aquatic Resources Management (WorldFish
Center)
ICS internal control system
IPM Integrated Pest Management
IFOAM International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements
GEF Global Environment Facility
*02 JHQHWLFDOO\PRGL¿HGRUJDQLVP
GTZ Deutsche Gesellschaft für Technische Zusammenarbeit
KD KHFWDUHVTXDUHPHWHUVRUDFUHV
KIOF Kenya Institute of Organic Farming
KOAN Kenya Organic Agriculture Network

LOMADEF Lipangwe Organic Manure Demonstration Farm
MEFE Mumias Education for Empowerment
MOOF Mount Kenya Organic Farm
NA not applicable
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NOGAMU National Organic Agricultural Movement of Uganda
PEEST Poverty Eradication through Environmentally Sustainable Technologies
PELUM Participatory Ecological Land Use Management
SACDEP Sustainable Agriculture Community Development Programme
SFO smallholder farmer organization
Sida Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency
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TOAM Tanzania Organic Agriculture Movement
UNCTAD United Nations Conference on Trade and Development
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UNEP United Nations Environment Programme
UNDP United Nations Development Programme
WHO World Health Organization
vii
Executive summary
Introduction
Organic agriculture is a sustainable and environmentally friendly production system that offers
African and other developing countries a wide range of economic, environmental, social and
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and Development (CBTF) started its work on organic agriculture in East Africa in 2004, a key
question repeatedly raised by public and private sector stakeholders in the region was to what
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special attention has been given to East Africa throughout the paper, including analysis of 15 case
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Food security and agricultural production
Modern agricultural methods have resulted in spectacular increases in productivity: more cereals and
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the majority of the chronically hungry are small farmers in developing countries who produce much
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In the last 10 years, progress in the drive to reduce hunger has been slow and has varied around
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FHQWVLQFH In the period 2000–2002, the proportion of undernourished people in the total
population of Kenya was 33 per cent, in Uganda 19 per cent and in the United Republic of
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and Eastern Africa compared to an overall decline in other developing regions such as Asia, South
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fertility rates and family sizes, the world population continues to increase, and so, in parallel, will
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The conventional wisdom is that, in order to double food supply, efforts need to be redoubled to
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Arguably, the most sustainable choice for agricultural development and food security is therefore
to increase total farm productivity in situ, in the developing countries that are the most in need of
JUHDWHUIRRGVXSSOLHV Attention must focus on the following:
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(ii) Whether they can do this without causing further environmental damage; and
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The food security of any region is not simply a question of producing enough food to meet demand;
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produces the food, who has access to the technology and knowledge to produce it, and who has
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Organic agriculture and food security
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of these natural, social and economic resources over time
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thus often reducing many of the factors
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Increase in food availability
In developing countries, evidence from research and from this study shows that agricultural yields
in organic systems do not fall, and at least remain stable when converting from systems that
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assets in systems improve, thus outperforming those in traditional systems and matching those in
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Bolwig (2007), have also found that organic conversion in tropical Africa is associated with yield
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produced per farm leads to household food security which results in all members of the household
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organic farming enables new and different groups in a community to get involved in agricultural
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The vast majority of the case studies in this research showed improvements to the natural capital
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to the natural environment, including increased water retention in soils, improvements in the water
table (with more drinking water in the dry season), reduced soil erosion combined with improved
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As a result soils are healthier, are better able to hold water and are more stable, can sustain plant
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Organic agriculture leads to improvements in social capital, including more and stronger social
organizations at local level, new rules and norms for managing collective natural resources and
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lowered the costs of working, led to increased knowledge transfer amongst farmers, reduced the
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(NGOs) and organic support organizations such as the Kenya Organic Agriculture Network
(KOAN), the National Organic Agricultural Movement of Uganda (NOGAMU), the Tanzania
Organic Agriculture Movement (TOAM), and the Export Promotion of Organic Products from
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and domestic organic markets and gain greater knowledge of sustainable organic techniques,
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Organic farming leads to an increase in human capital, evident in all of the case studies detailed in
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health of individuals and communities as a result of increased knowledge, an increase in food
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holistic nature of organic farming to adapt and change their farming systems when faced with new
challenges has resulted in these agricultural systems becoming more resilient to environmental
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Organic farming can also lead to improvements in the infrastructure (communications and
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farming, (particularly crucial for export) and farmers, NGOs and governments can work together
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Access to markets has increased not only for farmers selling their surplus in domestic markets, but
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farmer and household incomes as a result of becoming organic, which contributed to reducing
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• Organic agriculture can increase agricultural productivity and can raise incomes with
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resources, strengthen communities and improve human capacity, thus improving food
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projects, has been shown to increase access to food in a variety of ways: by increasing
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monocropping farming systems for the export market, whether conventional or organic,
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African countries; indeed, it is sometimes actively hindered by policies advocating the
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for the creation of better linkages between scientists, agricultural training and extension
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agriculture there is a need to work at all levels: local, national and international, as well
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• Improving agricultural sustainability through adoption of organic agriculture in Africa
may not be a solution to all the food problems, but considerable progress has been made
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future needs in response to continued population growth and development in African
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present situation of widespread food insecurity means that conventional farming systems
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human capital, could spread to much larger numbers of farmers and rural people in the
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released report of the International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and
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Overview 1
SECTION 1. OVERVIEW
1.1 Introduction
Organic agriculture is a sustainable and environmentally friendly production system that
offers African and other developing countries a wide range of economic, environmental, social
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Environment and Development (CBTF)
2
started its work on organic agriculture in East Africa

in 2004, a key question repeatedly raised by public and private sector stakeholders in the region
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origins, special attention has been given to East Africa throughout the paper, including analysis of
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1.2 Agricultural production and food security in Africa
Over the past 40 years, there has been remarkable growth in agricultural production with per capita
world food production growing by 17 per cent and aggregate world food production growing by
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Over the same period, world population grew from three to six billion, but globally per capita
agricultural production overtook population growth, and each person today has 25 per cent more
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Modern agricultural methods have brought spectacular increases in productivity: more cereals and
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in developing countries who produce much of what they eat and are often poor and lack access to
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The recent advances in aggregate productivity have therefore not brought reductions in the
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Indicators of food insecurity in a given region can
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Although average per capita food consumption in 2003 was 2,780 kcal/day, consumption in 33
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2 Organic Agriculture and Food Security in Africa
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go hungry, globally there are 126 billion underweight children and over 2 billion people suffering
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In the last 10 years, progress in the drive to reduce hunger has been slow and has varied around
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population of Kenya was 33 per cent, in Uganda 19 per cent and in the United Republic of
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and East Africa compared to an overall decrease in other developing regions such as Asia, South
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The world therefore still faces a fundamental food security challenge: despite steadily falling
fertility rates and family sizes, the world population continues to increase and so in parallel will
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World population is widely expected to reach 9 billion by the next generation, by when 84 per cent
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the same time, land and water degradation is increasingly posing a threat to food security and the
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increased production and more imports will mean per capita consumption will increase by 2015,
a person living in a developing country will still only consume half of the cereals and a third of
the meat consumed by a person in an industrialized country, which implies that food insecurity
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What makes agriculture unique as an economic sector is that it directly affects many of the natural,
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recognized as being important,
9
are described below:
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regulation; treatment, assimilation and decomposition of wastes; nutrient cycling and
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2. Social capital SURGXFHV D PXWXDOO\ EHQH¿FLDO FROOHFWLYH DFWLRQ FRQWULEXWLQJ WR WKH
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norms, values and attitudes that prompt people to cooperate; relations of trust, reciprocity
and obligations; and common rules and sanctions that are mutually agreed or handed
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Overview 3
3. Human capital is the total capability of individuals, based on their stock of knowledge
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and organizational skills are particularly important in making other resources more
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4. Physical capital is the store of material resources made by humans, and comprises
buildings, such as housing and factories, market infrastructure, irrigation works, roads
and bridges, tools and tractors, communications, and energy and transportation systems,
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5. Financial capital is more of an accounting concept, as it provides a facilitating role rather
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As agricultural systems shape these very assets on which they rely for inputs, a vital feedback
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The basic premise is that more sustainable agricultural
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and human capital, while unsustainable systems deplete these assets, leaving less for future
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For example: (i) an agricultural system that erodes soil while producing food results in costs
that others must bear;
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(ii) another system that sequesters carbon in soils through organic matter
accumulation helps to mitigate climate change; (iii) a diverse agricultural system that enhances
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Agriculture is therefore fundamentally multifunctional, as it involves many unique
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to sustainable forms of agriculture in general, and organic agriculture in particular, needs to be
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1.4 Causes of food insecurity
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produces the food, who has access to the technology and knowledge to produce it, and who has
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Box 1 shows the factors contributing to food insecurity in Africa, both natural and those caused
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4 Organic Agriculture and Food Security in Africa
Box 1. Factors contributing to food insecurity in Africa
1. Availability of food
Lack of consistent
access to food
• Enough food may be produced in a region overall, but food insecurity may
persist for those who do not have the resources to buy or produce it.
• Farmers may be able to produce or buy enough food for their families after
harvest but may be food insecure at other times of the year.

a
2. Natural capital
Degraded natural
resources
• A degraded natural environment, such as poor soil quality, eroded landscapes
or inadequate water resources, will compromise food production in an area.
Practice of mono-
cropping
• Monocropped systems are less likely to promote food security than diverse
agricultural systems, which are more resilient to stresses.
3. Social capital
Community and group
issues
• Where there are poor links within and between communities, with limited
networks, partnerships, trust and collective action, credit and responsibility,
communities are less likely to cope with and to be able to help each other in
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and ill-health is likely to be greater in areas with lower social capital.
4. Human capital
Lack of education and
knowledge
• Lack of education and agricultural/nutritional knowledge can affect farmers’
capacity to adapt to change or to cope with food production stresses.
Ill-health and diseases • Malnourished people are not able to produce food as effectively as those who
are well fed.
• The prevalence of diseases such as HIV/AIDS has had serious impacts on
food security and nutrition. When family members become ill or die from the
virus, households are less able to produce or buy food.
b
In sub-Saharan Africa,

11 million children are orphaned by HIV/AIDS.
c
Mortality and morbidity in HIV/
AIDS-affected households has led to decreased farm sizes, loss of income
at household level, a higher dependency ratio and a general increase in food
insecurity.
d
Gender issues • In many regions women are the major agricultural labour force. However, as
they are not always recognized for this, they may not control household budgets
and often have poor education.
• In areas where men are in control over the household income, less money
is spent on food when compared to those where women have control over
incomes.
5. Physical capital
Poor infrastructure • Poor infrastructure (roads, communications and markets for example) affects
food security.
Lack of access
to appropriate
technologies
• Lack of appropriate agricultural knowledge, technologies, methods or inputs
can affect food security.
6. Financial capital
Poverty • Poverty remains the root cause of hunger and malnutrition in the world.
e
Lack of access to
markets
• Lack of access to markets means that farmers and communities can neither sell
their surplus nor purchase food in times of shortage. This leads to inconsistent
food availability thus contributing to food insecurity.
7. Other external factors

Land-tenure issues • Land-tenure issues can contribute to food insecurity in a number of ways which
vary depending on the context. For example, in some areas if a husband dies,
the wife cannot continue to farm the land and the land goes to other members
of the family. In East Africa, all of the male children of a man inherit his land
between them on his death, which means that each person owns increasingly
smaller farm plots, making it hard to sustain enough food for the household.
Political issues  3ROLWLFDOSUREOHPVLQFOXGLQJFRUUXSWLRQFROOXVLRQDQGQHSRWLVPFDQVLJQL¿FDQWO\
inhibit attempts to tackle food insecurity.
f
Overview 5
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There are two emerging food security challenges:
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This will not be easy, as past agricultural development has tended to ignore both the
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16
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These questions are controversial, with widely varying positions about strategies which are
likely to be effective, including: (i) expanding the area of agriculture;
17
(ii) increasing per hectare
production in agricultural exporting countries;
18
or (iii) increasing total farm productivity in
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The conventional wisdom is that, in order to double food supply, efforts need to be redoubled to
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19
Arguably then, the most sustainable choice for agricultural development and food security is to
increase total farm productivity in situ, in the developing countries that are the most likely to need
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cost, locally available technologies and inputs (this is particularly important at times of
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(ii) Whether they can do this without causing further environmental damage; and
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16
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17
By converting new lands to agriculture, but with the result that services from forests, grasslands and other areas of
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18
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19
 7UHZH\DV6PLO7LOPDQHWDO0F1HHO\DQG6FKHUU
Climate and natural
disasters
• In areas prone to drought or unreliable rainfall, food security can be particularly
challenging.
• Plagues of natural pests such as locusts can decimate crops.
• Natural disasters may destroy lives, crops, homes and landscapes.
• In the last 20 years, the average number of deaths from natural disasters has
been more than the average for the preceding decade.
g
$UPHGFRQÀLFWVDQG
wars

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prevent food from being produced or accessed.
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an effect.
h
a
Benson, 2004.
b
Rosegrant et al., 2005.
c
FAO, 2002.
d
Rugalema, 1999; Sanchez and Swaminathan, 2005; and Wagah, 2005.
e
IFPRI, 2005.
f Rosegrant et al., 2005.
g
EM-DAT, 2005.
h
Messer and Cohen, 2004
6 Organic Agriculture and Food Security in Africa
1.6 Sustainability in agriculture
Many different expressions have come to be used to imply greater sustainability in some
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continuing and intense debate about whether agricultural systems using some of these practices
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However highly sustainable agricultural systems can be taken to mean those that aim to make the

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The key principles for sustainability are to:
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soil regeneration, allelopathy, competition, predation and parasitism into food production
processes;
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harm the health of farmers and consumers;
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substituting human capital for costly external inputs;
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agricultural and natural resource problems, such as pests, watershed, irrigation, forest and
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Sustainability in agricultural systems incorporates concepts of both resilience (the capacity of
systems to resist shocks and stresses) and persistence (the capacity of systems to continue over long
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systems with high levels of social and human assets are more able to adapt to change and innovate
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agricultural sustainability; no single system of technologies, inputs or ecological management is
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1.7 Organic agriculture
If sustainable agricultural systems are those that aim to make the best use of environmental goods
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Unlike the conventional intensive agricultural systems, organic farming represents a deliberate
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integrated, humane, environmentally and economically viable agricultural systems that rely to the

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Overview 7
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its Trade and Environment Review 2006GH¿QHVRUJDQLFDJULFXOWXUHDV“a holistic production
management [whose] primary goal is to optimize the health and productivity of interdependent
communities of soil, life, plants animals and people”6LPLODUO\WKH,QWHUQDWLRQDO)HGHUDWLRQRI
Organic Agricultural Movements (IFOAM), which has over 750 member organizations in 108
FRXQWULHVGH¿QHVLWDV“a whole system approach based upon sustainable ecosystems, safe food,
good nutrition, animal welfare and social justice. Organic production therefore is more than a
system of production that includes or excludes certain inputs.”
23
Principles of organic agriculture
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products has been objectively assessed as conforming with precise organic production standards,
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Box 2. IFOAM’s Principles of Organic Agriculture
• Principle of Health: Organic agriculture should sustain and enhance the health of soil, plant, animal,
human and planet as one and indivisible.
• Principle of Ecology: Organic agriculture should be based on living ecological systems and cycles,
work with them, emulate them and help sustain them.
• Principle of Fairness: Organic agriculture should build on relationships that ensure fairness with
regard to the common environment and life opportunities.
• Principle of Care: Organic agriculture should be managed in a precautionary and responsible manner
to protect the health and well-being of current and future generations and the environment.
Source: IFOAM, 2006b.
Many traditional farming systems found in developing countries practice organic techniques
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Traditional agriculture includes management practices that have evolved through centuries to
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nature, traditional systems do not use synthetic agricultural inputs but apply ecological approaches
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Rather than clear divisions between the sustainable, traditional and organic agriculture farming
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Figure 1 shows some of the overlaps
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8 Organic Agriculture and Food Security in Africa
Figure 1. Categories of agricultural practices in developing countries
Organic agriculture

Sustainable agriculture
Traditional
agriculture
All agriculture
Certified
organic
agriculture
Source: Taken from Twarog, 2006, in UNCTAD Trade and Environment Review 2006: 144.
There has been a huge growth in both the international and domestic markets for organic produce
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where an established and widespread domestic market for organic produce is not present, the
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for export of organic produce to Europe and the United States, for local markets in Africa it
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that gives the consumer the security of knowing that food has been produced according to strict
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accessible solutions to guarantee the integrity of organic produce for local domestic markets are
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limited domestic market for organic produce, it is not necessarily critical, possible or attractive
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In this study, “organic agriculture” refers to agriculture that meets organic production standards and
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Overview 9
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95 per cent), production is spread across the globe with developing countries having a large and
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25
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data collection on the continent, as there is no information available for nearly half of all African
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26
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Farmers in Africa produce a diversity of organic crops including coffee, cocoa, tea, fruits, medicinal
and aromatic plants, olives, cotton, sesame, cereals, oils, nuts, spices, honey, vegetables and
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27
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products are most developed in South Africa and Egypt, and have also been growing rapidly in

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28
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organic production, Kenya 181,500 ha and the United Republic of Tanzania
30
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carried out by exporting companies that subcontract (mainly smallholder) outgrowers, although
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32
Key information
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In Africa, at least 730 000 households farming about 700 000 hectares
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34
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In Africa, a large proportion of the labour force is employed in agriculture (60–80 per cent) and
the majority of these farmers (many of whom are women) are smallholders with farms of less
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and Tanzania the average use of chemical fertilizers is less than one kg per hectare per year, which
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35
Box 3. Key information about organic agriculture in Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania
Kenya Uganda Tanzania
x Organic agriculture from 1980s.
x Large private companies and
civil society organizations
(CSOs) have led the way with
FHUWL¿HGRUJDQLFVIRUH[SRUW
x Also smallholder farmers
organized into groups – some
are registered organic.
x National representative
organization of stakeholders
(both large companies and
smallholder farmer groups) in
organic agriculture - Kenya
Organic Agriculture Network
(KOAN).
x Mainly fruit and vegetables for
export market on large scale
farms but also more recently
essential oils and dried herbs
and spices.
x Small but expanding domestic
market.
x (VWLPDWHVRIKDFHUWL¿HG
organic with 35,000 farmers

(2007).
x Much agricultural production is
RUJDQLFEXWQRWFHUWL¿HG
x Government recently starting
to recognize role of organic
DJULFXOWXUH1RVSHFL¿FSROLF\
promoting organic agriculture.
x Sections on organic agriculture
included in draft revisions of soil
and food policies.
x &HUWL¿HGRUJDQLFIDUPLQJPDLQO\
smallholder farmers organized
into private companies,
supported by commercial
exporters.
x Strong local organic movement.
x Export market since 1994
– the main driving factor for
the development of organic
DJULFXOWXUHFHUWL¿HGRUJDQLF
exporters in 2005 expected 22 in
2006.
x (VWLPDWHVRIKDFHUWL¿HG
organic with 60,000 farmers
(2007).
x Small but expanding domestic
market.
x National representative
organization of stakeholders in
organic agriculture - National

Organic Movement of Uganda
(NOGAMU).
x Much agricultural production is
RUJDQLFEXWQRWFHUWL¿HG
x 1RVSHFL¿FSROLF\SURPRWLQJ
organic agriculture. The organic
Policy Development Committee
was created in 2003 but
progress has been slow due to
lack of funding.
x Uganda Export Promotion
Board is interested in organic
agriculture.
x &HUWL¿HGRUJDQLFIDUPLQJIRUH[SRUW
mainly by smallholders organized
into co-operatives.
x Organic cashews, pineapple, coffee,
tea, honey, herbs and spices, cotton
for export.
x History of low-input traditional
farming, so much agricultural
production for domestic markets
is organic or near organic, but not
FHUWL¿HG
x (VWLPDWHVRIKDFHUWL¿HG
organic with 55,000 farmers (2007).
x National representative organization
of stakeholders in organic agriculture
- Tanzania Organic Agriculture
Movement (TOAM) - formed in 2005.

x 1RVSHFL¿FSROLF\SURPRWLQJRUJDQLF
agriculture although existing National
Agricultural Policy has clauses on
organic agriculture and chapter on
organic included in current draft
revision.
Source:DODJDDQG7D\ORUHWDO*UROLQN5XQGJUHQ%ROZLJHWDO:LOOHUDQG<XVVH¿
International Trade Centre (UNCTAD/WTO), 2007; Draft Report of the East African Organic Conference, May 2007, available
on the UNEP-UNCTAD CBTF website at www.unep-unctad.org/cbtf.
35
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Evidence from Africa 11
SECTION 2. EVIDENCE FROM AFRICA
,QFUHDVLQJIRRGVHFXULW\ZLWKRUJDQLFDJULFXOWXUH
The food security of any region is not simply a question of producing enough food to meet
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important is who produces the food, who has access to the technology and knowledge to produce
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below, organic agriculture can improve the availability of food, particularly for those who are
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natural, social and economic resources over time
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2.1.1 Improvements in availability of food
In the more intensive, industrialized agricultural systems the productivity of organic agriculture

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management; (ii) organic management based on input substitution, and (iii) complete shift to a
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Particularly in these more industrialized farming systems, after switching from synthetic inputs to
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natural, social and human assets – either intrinsically low, or have become damaged by degradation
– then a sudden switch to organic practices that rely on these very assets will not be immediately
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38
In developing countries, evidence from research and from this study shows that agricultural yields
in organic systems do not fall, and at least remain stable when converting from systems that use
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in systems improve, thus outperforming those in traditional systems and matching those in more
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Organic farming can lead to increased food production – in many cases a doubling of yields
has been seen – which makes an important contribution to increasing the food security in a
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increases are possible and indeed likely, with a switch to organic farming in a variety of different
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Others, such as Gibbon and Bolwig (2007), have also found that organic conversion in tropical
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Increased household food security is frequently reported after a switch to organic production,
since the majority of smallholder farmers in Africa grow the bulk of their crops for domestic
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