Farmers in East Africa are set to enter the lucrative international organic produce market after launching their own seal of quality for organic products. The farmers hope the new East African Organic Products Standard (EAOS) — launched at the East African Organic Conference in Dar es Salaam this week — will boost sales for struggling farmers in the region and give their produce an exclusivity they can market at premium prices.
The organic market is fast growing, with more and more consumers in regions and countries such as the European Union and United States demanding organically cultivated foods.
“East African producers are poised to take advantage of the rapidly growing organic markets worldwide,” says Angela Caudle, executive director of the International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements.
The new organic standard, the second of its kind in the world, is similar to the current organic standard in the European Union, which guarantees that produce is cultivated in a system based on ecosystem management rather than the use of artificial fertilisers and pesticides.
This week’s launch is the result of a project started in 2005 to investigate the feasibility of organic produce cultivation in Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi and Tanzania.
“We are told that organic products have a good market in the developed world,” said Tanzanian Prime Minister Edward Lowassa, encouraging more farmers in East Africa to take advantage of the opportunity. He added that as organic products were environmentally friendly and healthy they could only be of benefit to East Africans.
A United Nations report, launched before the conference, found that smallholder farm systems were the mainstay of organic produce in the region. It found that the organic sector in East Africa was comparatively small in the participating countries, but was growing rapidly and attracting the interest of smallholder farmers who typically use fewer external inputs than larger estate-type farmers.
“Typically, organic agriculture in East Africa is founded on smallholder production and hence focuses on traditional commodity crops of the region such as coffee, tea, cocoa, cashew nuts and cotton,” the report said. “Other tropical, non-traditional crops have been added to these such as vanilla, sesame, tropical fruits, herbs and spices.”
Organic agriculture has enabled many thousands of rural families to find a secure income and, in the process, create satisfying self-employment, the report found, adding that increased income at household level had enabled families to build better houses and clothe and educate their children.
The report also found that, in the participating countries, women perform 70% of the agricultural work and provide the backbone of smallholder farm production. But it warned that as smallholder farms enter into commercial production, conflict could arise as men see themselves as being in charge of farm planning and the resulting cash crop, while the burden of the planting and crop care still falls to the women.