Agriculture Reference
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smallholders' interests were excluded from transformations occurring in organic cer-
tification arrangements. Participant observation at an audit training day with inter-
national organic inspectors and local field officers (who were being trained on how
to inspect farms to ensure compliance with the ICS), for example, demonstrated the
extent to whih Northern actors continue to shape organic certiication processes
for Southern smallholders, rather than in collaboration with them. This was espe-
cially evident in terms of atempts to ensure the gender sensitivity of ICS compliance
mehanisms. It was in this context that an international organic inspector asked the
only woman field officer present if she, or other women she knew, had concerns with
the ICS - with specific reference to its sensitivity to women's needs and interests.
The woman field officer remained silent, while many men present laughed (presum-
ably at the inappropriateness of this question being asked in a public space, and with
men in atendance). While there are many gendered dimensions related to engage-
ment in organic farming that this woman field officer might have discussed (includ-
ing land tenure, division of labour, access to income, etc.), she could not readily dis-
cuss suh issues in this public context. To make maters worse, women were signi-
ficantly under-represented at this meeting - with only one Ugandan woman present
out of a total of 12 local representatives - circumstances that further constrained
the extent to whih this woman might have discussed gender-sensitive issues. On
the one hand, this demonstrates the limits of Northern organic inspectors' under-
standings of the extent to whih gender (amongst other culturally specific contexts)
shapes the organization of social life, and distribution of, and access to, resources.
On the other, it also points to the limited extent to whih local-level actors, includ-
ing smallholders themselves, have been able to shape emerging processes related to
organic certiication in ways that beter relect local-level interests and experiences.
Similar frustrations regarding the limits to whih local-level interests were recog-
nized and included in the formation of local audit and inspection arrangements re-
lated to the actual content of organic standards. One of the primary objectives of
the domestic certifier, Ugo-Cert, is to 'actively facilitate the development of realistic
and acceptable environmentally sustainable production standards in Uganda and the
rest of the world' (Ugo-Cert, 2010). Despite this mission statement, and in contrast
to Kenya-GAP's success in ahieving recognition related to some locally equival-
ent standards, interviews with representatives from Ugo-Cert indicated they had, in
reality, ahieved litle success in negotiating equivalence between national, region-
al and international standards. A representative from Uganda's organic certification
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