The East African Organic Products Standard (EAOPS) was produced in 2007 by a community of public and private stakeholders from the countries of Uganda, Tanzania, Kenya, Burundi and Rwanda, and it is owned by the East African Organic Community. It is adapted to the conditions of East Africa and its purpose is to serve as a single standard for organic agriculture production under these conditions. It is also written in a way that is easy for producers and others to understand. The comprehensive development and consultation process leading to the final standard included work by a pubic-private committee of experts, comparisons with international reference standards, workshops in the countries, and trial inspections to the standard.
While the standard is a platform for a common label and market development in the home region, it also formulates standpoints for international equivalence negotiations on the standard. The most critical aim for international recognition of the standard is in the EU, where there are many trade relations and opportunities. The GOMA project, in cooperation with the IFOAM OSEA II project, “Regional Cooperation for Organic Standards and Certification in East African” is exploring options for getting EAOPS recognized by the European Commission for organic products traded from East Africa to the European Union. Because the East African countries do not fully regulate organic agriculture (including conformity assessment) the option for the countries to be on the Commission’s “third country list” is not available. Nor have certification bodies currently operating in the region requested approval as foreign certifiers with the scope of using the East African Standards, although some have applied for approval using standards that are proxies for the EU regulation. GOMA and OSEA are now talking with the Commission and certification bodies about a way forward to enable the EAOPS to be reviewed for equivalence through the certification body approval process. One big question is whether a certification body, if being approved for a given standard, can apply to expand the scope of approval to include another standard
Another activity undertaken by GOMA to facilitate the approval/recognition process is set of expert equivalence assessments between the EAOPS and the EU regulation. One such assessment was prepared using the new “Common Objectives and Requirements for Organic Standards” (COROS) which is promoted by GOMA as a kind of international clearinghouse tool for assessing equivalence among standards.
GOMA Steering Committee member, Dr. Sophia Twarog of UNCTAD, advocates the EAOPS at the EU-AU Workshop with Nikiforos Sevenas, Director International Affiars DG-Agri, and Dr. Abebe, Director, African Union.
A workshop of the European Union and African Union on organic agriculture in Africa, held in Brussels in June, provided an opportunity for GOMA representatives and advocates from East Africa to explain the EAOPS and call for a solution to recognizing it for imports into the EU. Moses Muwanga from the National Organic Agricultural Movement of Uganda (NOGAMU) presented the standard. GOMA’s Project Manager, Diane Bowen, presented on the role of international equivalence and the EOAPS in this context. Sophia Twarog from UNCTAD, and a GOMA Steering Committee member, provided a recap and appeal to the workshop participants to find a way forward for the EAOPS.