Kilimo Hai - Going Organic in East Africa

A short film is now available documenting the success of the IFOAM project Regional Cooperation for Organic Standards and Certification Capacity in East Africa.  It tells the story of how three smallholder farmers in Tanzania and Kenya escaped poverty, hunger and diminishing yields through learning organic farming practices, IFOAM reports. The film Kilimo Hai - Going Organic in East Africa is available here.

The OSEA II project is funded by the Govermnent of Sweden as a follow up to the OSEA I project and ran from November 2010 to December 2013. It aimed at improving income and livelihoods of rural communities in East Africa through facilitation of trade in organic products by means of a regional standard, development of the conformity assessment system, promotion of a regional mark and raising consumer awareness.

Some of the specific components of the project are:

• Building certification capacity in the region;
• Making conformity assessment accessible for small producers;
• Working with market access to the EU;
• Regional trade development;
• Advice and support governments on relevant policy issues for development of the sector;
• Monitoring and documenting the development of the sector in East Africa.

The project was implemented by IFOAM in close cooperation with the National Organic Agriculture Movements in Burundi (BOAM), Kenya (KOAN), Rwanda (ROAM), Tanzania (TOAM) and Uganda (NOGAMU). IFOAM contracted Grolink AB for the overall project management. More information on the project can be found here: http://www.ifoam.org/en/osea-ii-project