IIABA

IIABA PROJECT
IIABA: A project to advance organic agriculture in Africa

Launched on February 28, 2020 for a period of three and a half years, the Institutional Innovations in Organic Agriculture in Africa (IIABA) project aims to support the development of ecological organic agriculture on the continent. The project is coordinated by the African Organic Agriculture Network (AfrONet) and its partners are the Center for International Cooperation in Agricultural Research for Development (CIRAD), the National Institute for Research on Agriculture, Food and the Environment (INRAE), the Tanzania Organic Agriculture Movement (TOAM), the National Organic Agriculture Movement of Uganda (NOGAMU), the Moroccan Interprofessional Federation of the Organic Sector (FIMABIO) and the Network of Agroecological Initiatives in Morocco (RIAM).

CIRAD and INRAE ​​are working closely to facilitate the emergence of institutional innovations for the organic sector through the IIABA project and then deploy AfrONet to domesticate all these innovations to members across the continent. In the meantime, various activities are in place in these three countries, Morocco, Uganda and Tanzania. The idea is that to encourage organic agriculture, it is not enough to increase organic agricultural production. It is rather necessary to develop the appropriate institutions, whether in terms of markets, certification of the “organic” quality of products, and or public policies. From 2020 to 2023, CIRAD, INRAE, TOAM, NOGAMU and RIAM, under the supervision of AfrONet, will strive to identify institutional innovations in these three areas and promote them at the national and continental levels.

CIRAD and INRAE ​​coordinate action research for the IIABA project through regular studies and roundtables, and use Tanzania, Uganda and Morocco as pilot countries for the project. Although organic agriculture initially developed in Africa through export markets to meet growing consumer demand in the North, it is increasingly recognized in the South as a means of ensuring food security, sovereignty and nutrition. It is also increasingly integrated into climate change mitigation and adaptation strategies. In addition, it is a major public health issue: although the use of synthetic chemical inputs such as pesticides is less widespread in Africa than in other regions of the world, they are nevertheless used, and often in inappropriate and sometimes dangerous ways.

The traditional approach to developing the organic sector has mainly been to connect smallholder farmers to international markets. While this solution allows 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 the growing demand of African consumers for healthy and natural products, and to enable better integration of the organic sector at the local level, the challenge is to develop domestic markets. By relying in particular on the establishment of market observatories, round tables and platforms for dialogue between producers and consumers, the objective is to contribute to the construction of new, fairer and more inclusive market models, adapted to each local context. Depending on the requests of partners and local stakeholders on the ground, the project will test different combinations of solutions, whether they are based on physical infrastructure, contracts between stakeholders potentially involving public authorities, or the possibilities offered by new technologies and social media.

In addition to markets, organic quality assurance systems are essential for building supply chains: they ensure the credibility of organic farming by building trust between producers and consumers. For export, products must be certified by a third party, but this type of guarantee is expensive, often unaffordable and too difficult for small producers to manage. This is why other types of organic quality guarantees, better adapted to the social realities of smallholders, are necessary and are becoming increasingly common. This is the case of participatory guarantee systems (PGS). PGS are certification systems based on the active participation of the stakeholders concerned: mainly producers, but also consumers and other stakeholders in the sector. Together, they develop participatory standards, specifications and rules .
The objective of the IIABA project is not to define the ideal PGS, but to support stakeholders in the development of these innovative systems while improving mechanisms or technologies according to their needs. At this stage, CIRAD has notably developed original software to
improve the organization of controls. In addition to markets and guarantee systems, the
development of the organic sector in Africa also requires promising public policies that will make it possible to take political decisions in favor of organic farming.

This is why the IIABA project advocates a multi-stakeholder and multi-sectoral dialogue with policy makers at the different administrative levels of each country to take organic farming to new heights. Public authorities can support the development of organic farming by implementing a specific regulatory policy at the national level first and foremost, but also by other national incentive measures.

At the local level, all kinds of innovations are likely to be supported, such as municipal compost, territorial markets, organic fairs, supply agreements for collective catering, etc.

Research in these three areas of institutional innovation aims to develop specific manuals and tools that will allow not only AfrONet at the continental level but also partners in the three countries to strengthen their capacities and encourage their ongoing initiatives.

Funded by AFD, IIABA has a budget of 1.48 million euros for a period of three and a half years to accelerate the development of organic agriculture in Africa.