IIABA: accelerating the development of organic agriculture in Africa

Science at work 4 March 2020
Launched on 28 February for a duration of three and a half years, the aim of the IIABA project is to support the development of organic agriculture in Africa. Coordinated by the continental African Organic Network (AfrONet), the project partners, including CIRAD, will work to facilitate the emergence of institutional innovations to promote the organic sector in the continent. Actions will be conducted in three countries: Morocco, Uganda and Tanzania.
CIRAD and INRAE are jointly leading and implementing the action research component of the IIABA project © P. Dugué, CIRAD
CIRAD and INRAE are jointly leading and implementing the action research component of the IIABA project © P. Dugué, CIRAD

CIRAD and INRAE are jointly leading and implementing the action research component of the IIABA project © P. Dugué, CIRAD

The “Institutional Innovations for Organic Agriculture in Africa” (IIABA) project is based on the premise that in order to encourage organic agriculture , it is not enough to increase organic agricultural production. It is also necessary to develop the appropriate institutions , whether in terms of markets, certification of the “organic” quality of products, or public policies. From 2020 to 2023, CIRAD and its partners will strive to identify institutional innovations in these three areas and to promote them at the national and continental levels . CIRAD and INRAE are coordinating action research for the IIABA project, with several studies and the organisation of more than 20 round tables. Tanzania, Uganda and Morocco are the pilot countries for the project.

Although organic agriculture initially developed in Africa through export markets, to meet growing demand from consumers in the North , it is now increasingly acknowledged in the South as a means of ensuring food security and nutrition . It is also increasingly being integrated into climate change mitigation and adaptation strategies. Moreover, it is a key public health challenge: indeed, although the use of synthetic chemical inputs, such as pesticides, is less widespread in Africa than in other parts of the world, they are nevertheless used, often in an inappropriate and sometimes dangerous manner.

For equitable and inclusive markets

The traditional approach to the development of the organic sector often consists in connecting smallholder farmers to international markets. Although this solution enables producers to sell their organic products at a good price, it nevertheless cuts them off from local markets and excludes African consumers from these products. In order to meet growing demand from African consumers for healthy, natural products, and to enable better integration of the organic sector at the local territorial level , the challenge is to develop domestic markets.

Based in particular on the establishment of market observatories, round tables and platforms for dialogue between producers and consumers, the goal is to help build new market models that are more equitable and inclusive and adapted to each local context. According to requests from partners and local actors on the ground, the project will test different combinations of solutions, whether these build on physical infrastructures, contracts between actors potentially involving the public authorities, or the possibilities provided by new technologies and social media.

For participatory guarantee systems

In addition to markets, systems to guarantee “organic” quality are essential to the construction of sectors: they ensure the credibility of organic agriculture by building trust between producers and consumers. For export, products must be certified by a third party, but this type of guarantee is costly, and often unaffordable and too difficult to manage for small producers. This is why other types of guarantees of organic quality, which are better suited to the social realities of smallholder farmers , have emerged in the last few years. These are known as “participatory guarantee systems” (PGS).

PGS are certification systems based on the active participation of the stakeholders concerned: mainly producers, but also consumers, or other stakeholders in the sector. Together, they develop standards, specifications and the participatory rules for inspecting farms and delivering certification. These systems enable not only monitoring of organic practices, but also sharing of knowledge and best practices between the stakeholders concerned.

PGS can be very diverse. The goal of the IIABA project is not to define the ideal PGS, but to accompany stakeholders in the development of these innovative systems, while improving mechanisms or technologies according to their needs. CIRAD has, in particular, developed original software to improve the organisation of inspections.

For innovative public policies

In addition to markets and guarantee systems, the development of the organic sector in Africa requires conducive public policies. To ensure policy decisions support organic agriculture, the IIABA project advocates multi-stakeholder and multi-sector dialogue, with policymakers at different administrative levels in each country. The public authorities can support the development of organic agriculture through the implementation of a dedicated regulatory policy at the national level above all, but also through other national incentive measures. At the local level, all sorts of innovations can be supported, such as municipal compost, territorial markets, organic fairs, supply agreements for mass catering, etc.

Research in these three fields of institutional innovation is aimed at developing specific manuals and tools that will enable not only AfrONet at the continental level, but also partners in the three countries, to build their capacity and to encourage their ongoing initiatives. Financed by AFD, IIABA has a budget of 1.5 million euros and three and a half years to accelerate the development of organic agriculture in Africa.