The National Organic Agriculture Policy.

The National Organic Agriculture Policy is a national cross-sectoral policy of Uganda for the period 2020-2025. The vision of the National Organic Agriculture policy include sub sector transformation, competitiveness and environmental sustainability while contributing significantly to economic development, food and nutrition security and human well-being.
To enable its mission to guide and support investments in the entire Organic Agriculture value chain for inclusiveness, enhanced livelihoods, production and environmental sustainability, the Policy has set targets which include the increase of the annual growth rate of the Organic Agriculture production and of its contribution to the gross domestic product; the reduction of degradation of the ecosystems by increasing investments in the Organic Agriculture which also point at ensuring of the conservation of local seed and planting materials; the reduction of the Organic Agriculture dependent people living below the absolute poverty line and food insecurity thus also increasing health benefits and life expectancy of communities; the increase of public investment in Organic Agriculture; the reforming and extension of supportive services, including socio-cultural benefits especially for smallholder farmers’ groups, easier information exchange, technology dissemination and marketing.
The goal of the Policy is to harness the country’s Organic Agricultural potential by ensuring a regulated sub sector that contributes to national development. To this end, it sets out the following specific priority objectives: i. Strengthen Organic Agriculture research, appropriate technology development, utilization and dissemination; ii. Promote organic agriculture education and training. iii. Promote organic agriculture production, processing and technology support; iv. Enhance appropriate post-harvest handling practices, including storage and value addition to Organic Agricultural products; v. Promote standards, certification and accreditation of organic agriculture products; vi. Enhance market development and promotion. vii. Strengthen environmental conservation, indigenous biodiversity and sustainable use of natural resources.
Also, being organic farming in Uganda influenced by several cross-cutting factors including environmental, gender and youth, technical capacity, finance and other issues that may be outside the sole jurisdiction of any one specific intervention area, these need to be mainstreamed in the National Organic Agriculture policy which, therefore, also addresses the development of capacity for organic agriculture growth, the gender equity, youth participation and HIV and AIDS awareness, the climate change, the low rate of land use and tenure insecurity.
The most unique feature of Uganda‘s organic agriculture sub sector is the high coordination, involvement and commitment from all stakeholders. There is a high level of coordination among all Organic Agriculture stakeholders under the public private partnership arrangement. The Ministry of Agriculture Animal Industry and Fisheries in collaboration with key Government Ministries, Departments and Agencies, private sector and the civil society organizations shall coordinate the implementation of this policy, which will be based on the following principles: i. Subsidiarity, complementarity and comparative advantage. ii. Transparency and mutual accountability. iii. Public Private Partnerships, solid mutually beneficial partnerships among the various stakeholders at national, regional, continental and international levels. iv. Gender, youth and equity responsiveness. v. Conformity to internationally recognized Organic Agriculture measures, standards and guidelines. vi. Traceability and Identification within the production and supply chain.
Funds for the implementation of this policy include revenues from the Government, grants from Development Partners, private sector investments, CSO financing, community support, household savings, individual contributions. Government shall provide the main source of funding.