Marilyn Kabalere while training farmers on the importance of organic farmingBy Prisca WanyenyaThe National Organic Agricultural Movement of Uganda (NOGAMU) has called for the enactment of a law to regulate organic farming in Uganda so as to protect organic farmers and consumers from unscrupulous individuals.This is aimed at cementing Uganda’s position as leading producer of organic products in Africa.Marilyn Kabalere, Head Advocacy and Strategic Relations at the National Organic Agricultural Movement (NOGAMU), made the call in an exclusive interview with Business Focus on the sidelines of the training of the use of Black Soldier Fly in Jinja City last week.“It is only the law which can bite, the law will say here, you have gone wrong and you need to be held liable. If we are in this sector and we are promoting organic agriculture, but then we have people who will come in and say they are organic when they are not organic, but there is nothing to hold them accountable for such words, they are going to mislead the community,” Kabalere said.NOGAMU defended its stance citing a scenario of an organic farmer that isn’t using any chemicals yet the neighbour in conventional farming is using inorganic pesticides that will eventually affect the organic farmer, thus compromising the values of organic farming.Currently, the actions of the conventional farmer aren’t illegal.“When he (Organic Farmer) produces and he goes to sell, they will find chemicals in his products, and the country starts to lose, so that means the market will not be protected in any way. But if there is a law, they will say, okay, if you are conventional, there has to be maybe a distance where you need to ensure that you spray (your inorganic pesticides and fungicides), and your spray doesn’t affect someone who is organic, because as a country, organic agriculture is where we have a comparative advantage. We are the first in Africa in organic agriculture. We have the biggest organic land, and we are only second to India in the world,” she said.According to the Research Institute of Organic Agriculture, the Global Demand Growth is to a tune of US$171billion or (UGX 613Trn) in 2024 with the top markets being USA, Germany and China, while the emerging Markets are: Asian Tigers, Middle East and Africa.Responding to concerns over the high prices of organic products in Uganda, Kabalere admitted that it is one of the challenges NOGAMU has encountered, prompting calls for farmers not to exaggerate prices of their products, adding that having a law in place would try to regulate prices of organic products.“That is why we need a law, because people take advantage of the customers. I understand that sometimes organic agriculture is expensive, people put in a lot, but it should not be the reason as to why people charge a lot. It should be reasonable, and that is one area we can include in the law once we work on it, so that everyone is protected, the person producing and also the customer,” Kabalere said.The same sentiments were re-echoed by Samuel Nyanzi, Board Chairperson, NOGAMU who attributed the high prices of organic products on some of the farmers in the sector copying and pasting lifestyles from Europe.“I think we are just copying from Europe to here. When you hear that organic products are expensive in Europe, and you say that organic products will also be expensive here in Uganda, I think that is a wrong approach. When you go into organic farming and use the right methods, for example, if you are growing matooke, your matooke will be bigger than somebody who is not using organic farming,” he said.Samuel Nyanzi, demonstrating to farmers on how to make organic fertilizersAccording to NOGAMU, an app called “Kebera” is under development at Makerere University, that will enable consumers differentiate organic products from non-organic products on the market, which when commercialised will end the fraud organic consumers are facing, paying high prices for non-organic products.“The Kabera app came out as a result of people saying that even if they produce organic, when the products go to the market, they are still charged the same amount, and they are contaminated from there. If someone wants an organic product, how sure are they that this one is organic, it has no chemicals. It is a gadget, you put it on a product, and when the rays pass through, if the product is full of chemicals, it will bring red, then if it has minimal chemicals, it will bring orange, but now if it is green, then that is organic,” Kabalere said.Employees at Bioconvinsion Uganda Limited sorting out waste that will be turned into organic fertilizersHowever, NOGAMU’s Nyanzi expressed concerns over the low uptake of technology within Uganda’s agriculture sector, which he attributed to people being fixated about the knowledge they have, with limited desire to adapt to new changes in technology.“I think the biggest challenge with people, they are fixed, somebody says, I am doing this, and that is what I am supposed to be, they are not open to learning, they are not open to getting new knowledge. In knowledge, you cannot stick to the knowledge you are actually seeing, but also you have to test your knowledge with other people’s knowledge, and that can only be done through technology, IT. Information Technology is no longer for somebody who is seated in the office, wherever you are, you need to apply IT,” noted Nyanzi. Farmers Urged to Participate in National Organic Week During the training, farmers were encouraged to participate in the National Organic Week slated for 14th to 17th November 2026 at Hotel Africana, where Uganda is expected to hold the continental celebrations on behalf of Africa.“We are bringing the buyers from all over the world to come and buy from here. We have exhibitions. We have policy dialogues talking about different areas in the organic sector. This time, Africa is coming to Uganda, so, now this is the time to put our best foot forward. During this week, we also go to some of the organic sites, we take people to see what is on the ground to appreciate, because you cannot only be in a hotel,” Kabalere explained.Started in 2001, the National Organic Agricultural Movement of Uganda (NOGAMU) operates under four core objectives of; access to markets; training, research and extension where the Movement is running the NOGAMU Academy where people receive training in organic farming practices.NOGAMU’s other objective also operates on the objective of; standards and certification where the organisation support farmers to meet standards and be certified and lastly; advocacy between farmers and policy makers.“Our academy is different in a way because we are working on the master curriculum as NOGAMU and at the moment at Makerere we have Uganda Matters we have a number of universities and training institutions together to come up with a master curriculum and with this master curriculum we are designing it to be not like any other it is going to be a big master curriculum on organic in Uganda so that’s how different it’s going to be. What we have been doing is people approach us with specific needs then we organise our team to train them,” explained Kabalere.Despite 26years of existence, NOGAMU highlighted some of the challenges organic farmers are facing including the high cost of certification, with Kabalere revealing that currently, it is not easy for farmers to attain certification as the process is lengthy and negotiations are underway with the Ministry of Agriculture to ensure the certification is eased for the farmers to attain certification especially the farmers in inputs, organic inputs like fertilisers.Black Soldier Flies are kept in a controlled space to allow them mate and lay eggsShe noted, “We are pushing and supporting the participatory guarantee system which targets farmer groups instead of individuals so that they attain certification as a group which is cheaper than the third party we find the group is paying less because everyone is paying and also the licence so that is how we are addressing that. It can cost you between UGX60,0000 to UGX900,000 per group and this group is not less than the group contributes everyone contributes in the group and this money is mainly part of it is for the licence part of it is of course to facilitate the people who are going to assess what is on the farm so it is reasonable for the farmers.NOGAMU also cited the limited production whereby, the demand for organic products is higher than the supply with Kabalere noting, “Someone says I can have that order I can meet the order but when they start supplying, they disappoint the customer because the supply is not consistent so there is limited production and productivity.”The post NOGAMU Calls for Law to Regulate Organic Farming in Uganda and End Fake ‘Organic Products’ appeared first on Business Focus.