Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
actively avoid the use of synthetically-derived agricultural hemicals and that utilize natural
farming practices to build up the capacity of the soil. This may refer to both certified and non-
certiied organics (see Parrot and Marsden, 2002).
3.
Smallholders may: be men or women; depend on family labour or may hire workers; combine
high value horticultural crops with the production of other cash crops for sale on the local
market and for subsistence; be generally less well-resourced than commercial-scale farmers;
and are usually considered as part of the informal economy.
4.
In Kenya, these include: the Fresh Produce Exporters Association of Kenya (FPEAK), Kenyan
Flower Council, Horticulture Ethical Business Initiative (HEBI), and the Cooperation for Fair
Trade in Africa (COFTA). In Uganda, these include: the National Organic Agriculture Move-
ment of Uganda (NOGAMU), Export Promotion of Organic Products from Africa (EPOPA)
and Ugo-Cert.
5.
By April 2010, this exporter had gained fair trade certification for some of its vegetables due to
hanges in fair trade rules with regard to sourcing from outgrowers, although it is not likely
that participants in this study are among those now growing for fair trade markets.
6.
EurepGAP has been discussed in-depth elsewhere, and will not be repeated here. Please see
Campbell and Le Heron (2007) for more information.
7.
While the ETI (and fair trade, for that mater) have been writen about extensively elsewhere
(Barrientos and Dolan, 2006), they none-the-less represent an important part of the regulatory
context in whih the smallholders in this case study operate.
8.
Similar processes have resulted in Chile-GAP, Mexico-GAP and China-GAP.
9.
The expansion of organic agriculture in Uganda occurred at the end of the Amin and Obote re-
gimes in the mid 1980s. Support for the expansion of organic agriculture was part of a strategy
to re-build local food security, whih was jeopardized by decades of political instability, con-
flict and violence. By the early 1990s however, organic agriculture in Uganda — and more
broadly in Africa — had shifted from an initial emphasis on local food security to the pro-
duction of organic cash crops for export markets (Parrot and Marsden, 2002). his export fo-
cus has been supported by international development agencies via the provision of various
supports to food export companies, including: finance related to the costs of conversion and
certification, market access information, infrastructure support and the provision of other re-
sources. In Uganda, the Swedish International Development Corporation Agency (SIDA) fun-
ded the Export Promotion of Organic Products from Africa (EPOPA) between 1995 and 2008,
supporting (amongst other aspects) the establishment of organic supply hains.
References
Auret, D., and Barrientos, S. (2006) 'Participatory Social Auditing: Developing a Worker-fo-
cused Approah', in S. Barrientos and C. Dolan (eds)
Ethical Sourcing in the Global Food
System
, Earthscan, London, pp129-148
