Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
the Export Promotion of Organic Products from Africa (EPOPA) - with funding via
the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA) - and organ-
ic certification is provided by a number of international organic certifiers, including
IMO, EcoCert, BCS and KRAV. In addition to organic certification, many products
are also certified with other social and environmental standards, including Utz Certi-
fied, Fair Trade and GLOBALG.A.P Compliance with organic standards is a require-
ment for access to the international market for organic produce and, in this context,
and similar to fair and ethical trade, debates have emerged related to equivalence
and alternative certification systems - including local certification systems.
Localizing Organic Auditing
Compliance with international organic standards has been widely critiqued for its
high cost to farmers, especially smallholders; its reliance on culturally inappropriate
audit requirements (including detailed writen record keeping); and the limited rep-
resentation of smallholder farmers and other actors from the South in processes re-
lated to standards seting (Lyons
et al
., 2012 forthcoming). According to Dolan (2010,
p41), these circumstances have left smallholders and farming organizations in the
South with 'constrained possibilities' in international trade negotiations.
In large part as a response to these concerns, a national peak body for the
Ugandan organic movement was established in 1998. The National Organic Agricul-
ture Movement of Uganda (NOGAMU) atempts to provide a collective regional and
national voice for the organic sector, and in this role has played a part in the form-
ation of the domestic certification organization Ugo-Cert, and the domestic organic
standard. As part of its advocacy, NOGAMU - and the organizations, commercial
interests and farmers it represents - along with IFOAM (International Federation
of Organic Agriculture Movements) and other international and national organiza-
tions, have transformed audit arrangements related to organic certification, includ-
ing the introduction of locally specific audit requirements.
he audit model haracterizing organic certiication in the North has been
widely identified as ill-suited for use in the South (see, for example, Mutersbaugh,
2004; Dolan, 2010). There have been strong calls in Uganda (and elsewhere) to re-
structure the organic audit culture - haracterized by individual-based certiication
and high levels of writen record keeping - to beter relect the diverse cultural and
economic circumstances of smallholder farmers: ' … early on, they were trying to
use audit systems developed for EU large farmers rather than smallholders, so we
