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- The East African Organic Conference to be held in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania
- The Real-Life Impact of Organic Agriculture development on Daily Life in East Africa
- Promoting organic standard and certification in Africa
- A new impulse for the spread of System of Rice Intensification (SRI) in Madagascar and Mali
- March Against Monsanto on May 25 2013
- Upcoming organic agriculture-related events
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| | 1. The East African Organic Conference to be held in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania
| | | From July 1 to 5 2013, the proponents of the IFOAM OSEA II Project in partnership with the Tanzania Organic Agriculture Movement (TOAM) is organizing in Dar es Salaam the third East African Organic Conference under the theme “Sharing achievements made and lessons learned”. The conference will bring together organic stakeholders to share experiences learned since the launch of the East African Organic Products Standards six years ago.
In particular, the conference will
- report on the implementation of the East Africa Organic Products Standard and the East African Organic Mark and the growth of organic market;
- present organic agriculture related project and case studies;
- report on progress made in mainstreaming organic agriculture into relevant national and regional policies;
- introduce new aspects of organic production such as aquaculture and Participatory Guarantee Systems;
- share successful research initiatives and sector development experiences.
Besides the main conference event, the OSEA Project and key partners will organize a number of separate workshops and meetings. At the East African organic exhibition, producers will show the public what organic agriculture has to offer consumers and further afield.
For more information: http://www.ifoam.org/partners/projects/osea/The_East_African_Organic_Conference.html
The East African Organic Conference is aligned with the objectives of IFOAM’s Organic Alternative for Africa campaign and IFOAM looks forward to contributing to the success of the event.
| | | | | 2. The Real-Life Impact of Organic Agriculture development on Daily Life in East Africa
| | | The IFOAM OSEA II project has released a series of articles on the real-life impact the conversion to Organic Agriculture has on resource poor farmers and their families. The articles showcase success stories in Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania, and Uganda and detail the economic, environmental and social benefits experienced by numerous smallholder farmers. These include improving livelihoods and food security, enabling access to new markets as well as greater resilience of farming systems in times of drought or heavy rains. Furthermore, traditional farming practices are embraced and the financial and environmental burden of using expensive chemical inputs is eliminated. The articles, an important tool for advocating the Organic Alternative for Africa, are available here.
The OSEA II Project is implemented by IFOAM and the National Organic Agriculture Movements in Burundi (BOAM), Kenya (KOAN), Rwanda (ROAM), Tanzania (TOAM), and Uganda (NOGAMU) in close cooperation with organic stakeholders and governments in East Africa. More information can be found here.
| | | | | 3. Promoting organic standard and certification in Africa
| | | Last April, the Africa Union Commission organized training on standard and certification for organic products in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. The main goal of the training was to facilitate smallholder organic farmers’ access to organic markets through affordable and easily accessible certification systems.
The capacity building workshop was facilitated by Jack Juma and Samuel Ndungu from the Kenya Organic Agriculture Network (KOAN) and brought together 15 participants from Kenya, Uganda, Burundi, Rwanda, Tanzania and Ethiopia.
The course focused on the East African Organic Products Standard (EAOPS), European regulations, Japanese Agricultural Standards (JAS), the U.S. National Organic Program Standards (NOP), third party certification, Participatory Guarantee System (PGS) and field visits. Moreover, Mr. Julius Ojock, from Uganda, facilitated a session on Geographical Indications (GIs).
For more information, please contact Noel Kwai (noelkwai@gmail.com).
| | | | | 4. A new impulse for the spread of System of Rice Intensification (SRI) in Madagascar and Mali
| | | The System of Rice Intensification (SRI) is a “set of insights and practices that change the management of plants, soil, water and nutrients used in growing irrigated rice.” Unlike the continuous flooding of paddy fields, SRI involves intermittent wetting and drying of paddies as well as specific soil and agronomic management practices.
Research has demonstrated that SRI provides higher yields, requires less seed and water compared to traditional methods or improved methods using synthetic fertilizers. More importantly, SRI makes use of what the farmer has by using locally available resources rather than purchasing external inputs. Despite these benefits, SRI has not been widely adopted in some African countries like Madagascar and Mali.
In order to address this, two NGOs namely CODEGAZ in Madagascar and 3A-Sahel in Mali are actively promoting this important technology.
For more information, please visit www.agriculturesnetwork.org.
| | | | | 5. March Against Monsanto on May 25 2013
| | | On May 25, activists around the world will unite to March Against Monsanto. For more information: http://occupy-monsanto.com/march-against-monsanto-may-25-2013/
Why do they march?
Research studies have shown that genetically-modified foods supported by huge corporations such as Monsanto can lead to serious health conditions such as the development of cancer tumors, infertility and birth defects and have negative impacts on ordinary farmers and local communities.
In South Africa for example, the government launched in partnership with Monsanto a Massive Food Production Program (MFPP) to “unlock the agricultural potential in underdeveloped areas”. Participating MFPP were credit to purchase fertilizers, pesticides and genetically modified seeds. According to Grain, the MFPP has been singularly unsuccessful in relieving poverty or integrating farmers in the market. It has, however, had a series of other long-term consequences such as destruction of agro-biodiversity and knowledge, creating a market for GMOs, reduction in nutritional value and productivity, poisoning of soils, the disempowerment of local farmers.
In Burkina Faso, according to SEDELAN, an Burkinabe editorial office, the introduction of the genetically modified “Bt cotton” has plunged thousands of farmers in debt, highly degraded soil quality and contaminated variety of African traditional cotton.
Join the March
We therefore invite interested people to join the March against Monsanto on May 25th. So far four African towns have joined the movement: Abeokuta (Nigeria), Dakar (Senegal), Capetown and Johannesburg (South Africa).
The Organic Alternative for Africa
The International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development (IAASTD), the most comprehensive assessment of agriculture to date, found that building more resilience into food systems by increasing investments in agro-ecological sciences, small-scale biodiverse farming methods and farmer-led participatory breeding programs can deliver far better results, without the risks and high input costs that accompany GM seeds.
For more information: http://www.agassessment-watch.org/
| | | | | 6. Upcoming organic agriculture-related events
| | | ISOFAR/MOAN symposium: "Crop Protection Management in Mediterranean Organic Agriculture"
May 14 to 16, 2013
Sousse, Tunisia
For more information: http://www.isofar.org/
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Email: h.bouagnimbeck@ifoam.org
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© 2013 IFOAM - All rights reserved. International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements (IFOAM) e.V.
Trial Court Bonn, Association Register no. 8726
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