United Nations Radio

Thousands of small farmers in West Africa are benefiting from the growing demand for organic produce. They are now exporting pineapples, mangoes, cocoa and shea butter to Europe, thus boosting their incomes while also helping to preserve the earth. Cooperatives in Senegal, Burkina Faso, Sierra Leone, Cameroon and Ghana received help from the UN Food and Agriculture Organization in bringing their crops up to organic and fair-trade standards. Dianne Penn found out more from Pascal Liu of FAO's Trade and Markets Division.

organic goods

LIU: One important challenge that the farmer groups faced is that they had a low level of organization. Some of these groups, for instance, had not even registered (with) their governments. They had no strong real participation from their farmers. They had very poor finances. So one of the important activities of the project was to strengthen these groups, to build their capacity, to help them organize better so that they could provide better services to their farmer members, and they could be also trusted more by their members.

PENN: Mr. Liu, it sounds like it was not really a problem of them producing organic goods; their products were already organic, as it were...Is that a correct assessment?

LIU: It's a correct assessment in some cases. In some other cases the farmers were using some relatively small quantities of agro-chemicals, so their products were not produced according to organic standards. But because the quantities they were using were relatively small, it was not too difficult for them to decide to give up the use of these agro-chemicals in order to get the organic certification.

PENN: It also sounds like the project in addition to benefiting people on the international market, it also benefits the farmers themselves so there's a two-way channel of benefits there.

LIU: We actually carried out some impact analysis studies. And the surveys found out in all beneficiary countries that as a result of producing and exporting organic and fair trade products, farmers have been able to increase their yields. They also increased their product quality, and they even increased the cultivated area. And thanks to that, the farmers were able to increase their incomes. What's very important is that a relatively important share of the extra income was used to buy food, so that had a direct impact on the food security of the beneficiary farmers and of the beneficiary local communities. Other use of the extra money earned by the farmers was for instance buying clothes for their family, or for instance paying school fees for their children. So it also has an impact on the long-term development of the local communities by allowing more children to go school and to attend school for a longer time.

PENN: Have you had any feedback from the farmers?

LIU: Yes, definitely. Personally I spent some time. I went to several supervision missions of the project in the beneficiary countries, and I spent some time with the farmers and the local communities and they all had a very positive assessment of the project. They all felt that the project had brought some economic benefits, but not only economic but also social benefits because there was greater self-esteem of farmers, and also a greater sense of self-help, of solidarity and cooperation, between farmers. They felt more like they were colleagues working together towards the same aim, which was to export their products to markets where they could fetch higher prices. It has reinforced the cohesion of the local organizations, the cooperatives, and the farmer groups. It has really strengthened the image of these groups in the eyes of their members. There's been also the creation of jobs, both directly, for instance on the farms: but also indirect jobs, for instance in the cooperatives or farmer groups: some administrative jobs, some marketing jobs, some jobs that are related to the marketing and processing of the organic products.

PENN: This was a pilot project... Since it seems to have been so successful...are there any plans to replicate this in other parts of Africa, or in other parts of the developing world?

LIU: We have formulated a proposal to replicate that in other parts of Africa. So we submitted some proposals to various donors hoping that some donors would accept to provide voluntary contributions for funding this project. But so far we're still waiting for a positive reply. The organic market offers opportunities to many farmers in developing countries in the sense that it is a market that is growing fast, that offers a price premium, and that organic agriculture is labour intensive and emphasizes the use of local resources. So for some developing country farmers who do not have easy access to mechanization and to external synthetic inputs, organic agriculture can be well adapted to their situation. Of course, there is no panacea, and there should be a case by case study, we cannot say that there is one recipe or one size fits all. But we do think that for small farmers, organic agriculture can be one of the tools to sustainable agricultural development.

PRES: Pascal Liu is a Trade Economist with the Food and Agriculture Organization

Producer: Dianne Penn
Duration: 3'52"