NEGOTIATING ORGANIC, FAIR AND ETHICAL TRADE: LESSONS FROM SMALLHOLDERS IN UGANDA AND KENYA - Food Systems Failure - page 227

produce, how we grade. So they wanted to see how we do it… Yes, they were
coming with videos.
Kenya-GAP negotiations did not open up spaces for smallholders themselves to
comment, largely because FPEAK formally involved producer cooperatives but did
not address existing inequalities within these. This problem could have been ad-
dressed by incorporating other groups where marginalized smallholders (rather than
male land owners) are more active and empowered, into the Kenya-GAP negoti-
ation process. Examples of this type of group are maendeleo or harambee groups
- self-help-style groups - whih emerged as a muh more efective strategy for
women smallholders especially to assert their agency at the local level. In these
groups, smallholders can hallenge cultural norms that otherwise result in their ex-
clusion from decision-making in producer cooperatives; indeed they were so im-
portant that smallholders described these groups more like 'actors' in the food sys-
tem than producer cooperatives, because their activities go beyond market access to
include providing labour, financial assistance, information and social support. The
implications of excluding suh groups from the Kenya-GAP process was evident in
that, while smallholders themselves hose to discuss a wide range of health and
safety, environmental and social concerns, none of these issues emerged as key areas
of concern to FPEAK in regards to Kenya-GAP. FPEAK commitees were interested
in localized solutions to problems of affordability of implementation that could be
quantified in the language of audits, rather than ones that required more complex
negotiation of cultural and structural constraints on smallholders.
his hapter now turns to consider similar hallenges afecting organic small-
holder producers in Uganda, suggesting that while equivalence movements in stand-
ards involve some improvements for smallholders, they are restricted to governance
hannels from whih smallholders remain marginalized.
Organic agriculture in Uganda: the case of Ugo-Cert
The first organic export projects from Ugand a 9 began in the early 1990s, and included
organic solar-dried tropical fruit, hillies, ginger, beans and okra, and an organic cot-
ton export initiative. Since then, organic exporting has expanded to include a range
of other products, including vanilla, bark cloth, cocoa, Arabica and Robusta coffee
and sesame. In almost all cases, farmers are certified organic via a group certification
process. Many export initiatives in Uganda have received financial assistance from