Organic Agriculture

Organic farming is a growing industry in East Africa, and tourism and agriculture are important contributors to economic growth in the region.

Organic farming offers an excellent and lucrative export opportunity for Africa, but access to finance is harder to come by than five years ago, an UNCTAD survey has found.

The revival of nutmeg farming has generated jobs and economic opportunity in the post-conflict Indonesian province of Aceh and is still helping to consolidate peace in the region as much as a decade after the end of the insurgency, says a new UNCTAD study, Sustaining Peacebuilding and Post-Conflict Recovery Through BioTrade.

Farmers, researchers, academics, policy makers, entrepreneurs and representatives of African organic movements gathered at the Third African Organic Agriculture Conference, in Lagos, Nigeria, 5-9 October 2015.

​Linking organic agriculture and tourism has a significant potential to help reduce poverty in the United Republic of Tanzania, a new UNCTAD report has found.

UNCTAD participated in one of the world's leading trade fair for organic food, the BIOFACH conference in Nuremberg, from 11 to 14 February 2015.

The experiences of the Lao People's Democratic Republic and Uganda in harnessing organic agriculture to promote balanced environmental, social and economic improvements will be highlighted during the annual meeting of UNCTAD's Trade and Development Board in September.

​The Third Lao Organic Agriculture Forum (LOAF 3), jointly organized by UNCTAD and the ministries of Agriculture and Forestry, and Industry and Commerce of the Lao People's Democratic Republic (Lao PDR), took place in Vientiane in July.

Farming in rich and poor nations alike should shift from monoculture towards greater varieties of crops, reduced use of fertilizers and other inputs, greater support for small-scale farmers, and more locally focused production and consumption of food, a new UNCTAD report recommends.

A new United Nations Forum on Voluntary Sustainability Standards, which has just been launched, will focus during its first years on the role to be played by governments in making voluntary sustainability standards work for public policy objectives while avoiding trade friction and exclusion.