According to the studies by IFOAM and the Swiss Research Institute of Organic Agriculture (FibL) 39 African countries are engaged in certified organic agriculture.
Currently, 0.88 million hectares are certified organic and managed by at least 470,000 farms. The leading country in terms of organically managed agricultural land is Uganda with 212,304 hectares, while Madagascar, which is the 10th, has 20,000 hectares.
However, in terms of share of a country’s agricultural area, Sao Tome
and Prince has the highest with 5.02 percent, while Ethiopia, which is
the 10th, has 0.28 percent.
Uganda (180,746 farms) has the largest number of organic farms, followed by Ethiopia (101,899 farms).
In addition to the 0.88 million of certified organic agricultural land, 9.5 million hectares of land are certified as bee keeping, forest and wild collection areas. The largest bee keeping areas are in Zambia (5.1 million hectares). The largest wild collection areas are in Namibia (3.0 million hectares). Medicinal plants like devil’s claw (Harpagophytum procumbens) play the most important role.
In addition to certified Organic Agriculture covered by this
survey, it should be noted that much organic production is also taking place in
Africa without certification. There are a large numbers of African organic
farmers for whom formal certification does not have any advantages. This is
true for farmers who practice subsistence farming for the food security of
their families or their community. Unfortunately, there are no official
statistics to quote on this type of organic production.
