"The Health of Soil, Plant, Animal and Man is One and Indivisible” – Lady Eve Balfour

In addition to existing agricultural challenges, pandemics and wars such as Covid-19 pandemic and Russia-Ukraine war created issues such as the increase in prices of fuel, food commodities and particularly agro chemical input. 

This revealed that the current agricultural systems based on the use of synthetic inputs are vulnerable and not sustainable as it is claimed to be. Agriculture accounts directly for 11-13% of greenhouse emissions and indirectly for another 12%. 

With our climate increasingly unsteady, we can’t afford to continue with current methods that erode soil, pollute the environment and jeopardize consumers’ health. 

Our growing population needs farming methods that conserve and regenerate resources while generating healthy food—not methods that use more chemicals, polluting the environment. We need more nutrient-dense foods to truly feed the world. In order to achieve that goal, we need more foods that provide complete nutrition and more farmers to grow it. 

Currently, our food system overproduces grains, fats, and sugars and under produces the vitamins, minerals, and proteins vital for better human health. 

The overuse of synthetic fertiliser is a serious problem, where farmers become dependent on artificial chemicals to nourish their crops. Inefficient use of chemical fertilisers and pesticides increases run-off into streams, rivers and waterways where it contaminates water and kills aquatic life including fishes. 

The ground water can also be polluted by leaching of overdose chemicals applied on farm, which makes water sources contaminated. In addition, the intensive use of synthetic fertilizers, pesticides and fungicides brings critical non-conformities to the compliance requirement of organic certification; this constitutes a big barrier to access niche markets that offer high prices to small holder farmers.

Rwanda Organic Agriculture Movement, the umbrella organization of organic stakeholders in Rwanda that implements the KCOA-KHEA project with an overall goal to ensure that the Ecological Organic Agriculture is integrated into the Eastern Africa Agricultural Systems including policies, plans and investments, finds justification in the greater need of promoting ecological organic agriculture as a sustainable solution to address the above challenges mentioned. 

Small farmers using organic farming methods have huge potential to expand global food production and organic farming methods actively regenerate resources and protect the environment from pollution and toxic wastes. For a healthy future, we can’t afford anything less. That’s why the myth that organic farming can't feed the world is just wrong.

To promote the organic sector in Rwanda, we make a call to the Government of Rwanda to implement the African Heads of States Decision EX.CL/Dec.621(XVII) on Organic Farming that was made following the report of the Conference of Ministers of Agriculture held in Lilongwe, Malawi in 2010. In the same alignment, the government of Rwanda considered having organic agriculture integrated into the national agricultural policy and programs.

The writer is the CEO of Rwanda Organic Agriculture Movement (ROAM).