Organic farming for local markets in Kenya: Contribution of conversion and certification to environmental benefits

Abstract

Organic farming is a way to address environmental issues. In Kenya, organic production for domestic markets based on local certification represents a solution to both economic and environmental issues. We propose to address this latter issue. Indeed, no quantitative studies have been dedicated to these systems’ impacts on the environment. However, their theoretical benefits can be weakened, first by their functioning based on internal control and indirect external control, and second by the risk of self‐selection since farmers using low levels of synthetic inputs have less effort to make in order to enter in conversion process. Thanks to unique farm‐level survey data along with the propensity score matching method, we assess the producer‐level effects of organic certification for fruits and vegetables on agro‐ecological practices. We show that conversion and certification are associated with organic farming techniques and positive perceptions of different statements about environmental values. However, we do not notice any additional effects of certification compared to conversion alone. Although economic issues are important, we focus on environmental issues that appear as important for smallholders. In a context with no public regulation, conversion‐only farmers and locally certified farmers could be a lever for a more sustainable agriculture.

Trade credit from agrochemical vendors as an alternative source of finance for cabbage producers in the Bono East Region of Ghana

“…The study employed the average treatment effect on the treated (ATT) to quantify the impact. The PSM technique has widely been applied in the estimation of impact (Canwat et al , 2020; Iddrisu et al , 2020; Tankam and Djimeu, 2020). However, Olounlade et al (2020) indicate that the PSM is subject to unobserved covariates (conditional independence assumption) which consequently affect the outcome and treatment variables.…”

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“…On the other hand, domestic markets represent only a small share of the total sector. The first local organic markets based in Nairobi emerged more than 20 years after the first training initiatives were undertaken by smallholder farmers [22,8] argues that organic tea has a simple and traditional flavor that is probably the same as tea grown many years ago in countries with a long history of tea growing, including the smallholder sub-sector in Kenya. Organic tea therefore brings an antecedent directly to the taste than non-organic tea.…”