Household food security effects of certified organic export production in tropical Africa: a gendered analysis (original) (raw)

Organic Agriculture and Undernourishment in Developing Countries: Main Potentials and Challenges

Critical Reviews in Food Science and Nutrition, 2013

While much has been published on the advantages of organic agriculture, less has addressed its potentials and challenges to fight undernourishment in developing countries. This article aims at reviewing the main potentials and challenges of this approach when dealing with "undernourishment" as a multifaceted concept in developing countries. Accordingly, 2 main issues of the concept which are "food security" and "food safety" are discussed in the context of both developed and developing countries to understand their different food policies' priorities. Next, the main potentials, challenges and tradeoffs of the organic approach are analyzed to understand whether the approach is capable to provide a secure or a safe food-production system which can meet the food policy priorities in developing countries. With respect to food security, the article concludes that conventional and biotechnological approaches still produce higher yields than organic agriculture. However, considering the many advantages of organic agriculture, it can in a long run, be more conducive than now to meet food security. Thus, conventional approach is still needed to feed the hungers in developing countries [corrected]. Accordingly, the article emphasizes on the importance of providing farmers in developing countries with the possibility of implementing different approaches. Therefore, policy makers should be aware of a realistic and gradual transition from the other approaches to the organic that should be projected only in "long run," and after conducting a series of risk assessment studies on the bases of both "crop-case" and "region-case."

Organic Agriculture and Food Security: The Story of Africa

Global food security problem has raise concerns on the best agricultural practices that will stand the test of time to replace the already failing conventional agriculture. Yields are reportedly decreasing despite the increasing use of imputes. In the quest of solving this problem, researches have revealed that organic agriculture can get the needed results in a more sustainable manner. Activists of organic agriculture are therefore of the view that it is the best option for food sustainability especially in developing worlds like Africa. Critics also think organic agriculture is a sort of luxurious lifestyle being champion by some few rich consumers at the expense of the vulnerable majority. It is therefore unclear whether organic agriculture is the answer to Africa’s food crisis. It was shown by literature that organic agriculture is the best model of agriculture for Africa in tackling the food needs of the continent. The superiority of organic agriculture over conventional agriculture was seen in its high yielding crops, high nutrient food produced, less energy consumption and less greenhouse gas produced during production, high drought and flood resistant crops with an overall positive impact on the ecosystem. However, challenges such as lack of national organic agriculture policies, low/no research in organic agriculture, high cost of organic certification and imputes, high illiteracy rate, and under developed markets in most African countries hampers widespread adoption of organic agriculture in Africa. Until these challenges are addressed by governments of African countries, organic agriculture cannot be the answer to Africa’s food crises.

Organic Farming and Food and Nutrition Security

2021

While many studies have shown that organic farming may improve the welfare of smallholder farmers in developing countries, its effects on food and nutrition security have barely been analyzed. We use cross-sectional data from Benin to analyze the effect of organic farming on food and nutrition security. We measure food and nutrition insecurity by the FAO dietary diversity score, a score for vitamin A-rich foods, and a food insecurity experience scale. Our preliminary results show that organic farming has no statistical significant effect on food security but that it could improve indicators of dietary diversity and vitamin A rich foods.

Ethiopia (Food Access) Food Security, Livelihoods and Options for Organic Agriculture In Ethiopia

Papers Submitted

Papers was put out in preparation for the International Conference on Organic Agriculture and Food Security, 3-5 May, to be held at FAO Headquarers in Rome, Italy. Over the course of 3 months, 115 papers related to organic agriculture and food security were submitted by farmers, students, researchers and civil society organizations. This overwhelming response of amazing stories reflects the effort of people around the globe who believe in organic agriculture and its capacity to contribute to improved food security.

Factors influencing organic agriculture policies with a focus on developing countries

IFOAM 2000 Scientific Conference, Basel, Switzerland, 2000

Organic agriculture is frequently understood as a system of food production and consumption proper to environmentally-and health-conscious people of the developed world. The main drive of many developing countries to produce organic food and fibres is to tap market opportunities in developed nations.

Food Security through Organic Agriculture : A Global and National Perspective

Journal of International Development and Cooperation, 2012

Organic farming practices have been spreading gradually in both developed and developing nations as a system following agro-ecological principles, depending on locally available resources, healthy produce or certified-export oriented production. This has raised a question of whether organic farming would be able to feed the world population, especially when food insecurity is expected to intensify further in the future. While there is skepticism that excluding the use of fertilizer and pesticides will be a threat to total food production, there are also numerous studies which has shown that farmers have in fact improved the level of food security after being introduced to organic farming methods. Thus, this paper assesses achievements made by organic agriculture for attaining food security and provides direction for organic agriculture development in Nepal. This paper is based on various scientific papers, proceedings, books and websites of different organizations working for organic agriculture and food security. Studies have shown that in areas with intensive high-input agriculture, conversion to organic farming reduced crop yield. But those with low input agricultural system, yields have been predicted to increase when agro-ecological principles are used. Also as it is claimed that though global food production is sufficient to feed the present global population, incidence of food insecurity largely looms in the society. Therefore, it is clear that food security depends not only on yield determining factors such as seeds, soil structure and overall geographic condition but also on socio-economic factors such as availability of technologies, human capacities, policies, prices, trade and infrastructural context. The analysis of research findings show that organic agriculture can be one of the option for achieving food security with primary focus on agro-ecological and socio-economic factors. Finally the paper concludes by emphasizing on how food security can be enhanced through agro-biodiversity, strong political will, public-private partnership, research and development based activities for better accomplishment.

Organic farming as a development strategy: who are interested and who are not?

Journal of Sustainable Development, 2010

Much evidence shows that implementation of organic farming (OF) increases productivity in the Global South, and that it will be possible to feed a growing world population with food produced in OF systems. OF is explored, analysed and discussed in relation to the principles of Ecology, Health, Care and Fairness as enunciated by IFOAM, as a developmental strategy.

The role of organic farming for food security: local nexus with a global view

Future of Food: Journal on Food, Agriculture and Society, 2016

A convergence of factors has made food security one of the most important global issues. It has been the core concept of the Milan Expo 2015, whose title, Feeding the Planet, Energy for Life, embodied the challenge to provide the world’s growing population with a sustainable, secure supply of safe, nutritious, and affordable high-quality food using less land with lower inputs. Meeting the food security agenda using current agricultural production techniques cannot be achieved without serious degradation to the environment, including soil degradation, loss of biodiversity and climate change. Organic farming is seen as a solution to the challenge of sustainable food production, as it provides more nutritious food, with less or no pesticide residues and lower use of inputs. A limit of organic farming is its restricted capability of producing food compared to conventional agriculture, thus being an inefficient approach to food production and to food security. The authors maintain, on t...

How is organic farming performing agronomically and economically in sub-Saharan Africa?

Global Environmental Change, 2021

The potential of organic agriculture and agroecological approaches for improving food security in Africa is a controversial topic in global discussions. While there is a number of meta-analyses on the environmental, agronomic and financial performance of organic farming, most of the underlying data stems from on-station field trials from temperate regions. Data from sub-Sahara Africa in particular, as well as detailed real-farm data is scarce. How organic farming is implemented in sub-Saharan Africa and how it performs in a smallholder context remains poorly understood. We applied a novel observational two-factorial research design, which allowed to evaluate the impacts of i) interventions for introducing organic agriculture and ii) specific organic management practices on 1,645 farms from five case studies in Ghana and Kenya, which we closely monitored for 24 months. Among the farmers who have been exposed to the interventions, we found heterogeneous adoption of organic agriculture principles, depending on the intervention. Furthermore, we found rather passive than active organic management among farmers. Most yields and gross margins under organic management remained at similar levels as the conventional values in four of the case studies. In one case study, however, coffee, maize and macadamia nut yields increased by 127-308% and farm-level gross margins over all analysed crops by 292%. Pooling our data across all case studies, we found significantly higher (+144%) farm-level gross margins on organically managed farms than on conventional farms. This indicates the potential of organic and agroecological approaches if implemented well. Based on our observations, we argue for improving the implementation of organic agriculture projects in settings with smallholder farmers. Limited capacities, lack of appropriate inputs and market access are major agronomic and institutional challenges to be addressed. Furthermore, we argue for supporting a differentiated debate about which types of organic farming are really desirable by classifying approaches to organic farming according to i) their intention to work organically and ii) the degree of following the organic principles. This will support the design and implementation of targeted policy interventions for stimulating sustainability of farming systems and rural development.