Hi, welcome back! I think this week flew by so quickly that I didn’t realise it’s time to post my 7th blog post. I really hope that so far, my posts haven’t been too boring or ordinary. For today’s blog post, I will do a similar thing like what I did in my previous post, which is analysing a good case study. I feel like I have been focusing too much on Indonesia, so the case study I have chosen for today’s post is Uganda’s organic agriculture, which is one of the 8 featured success green economy stories published by United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).

The Cover of the UNEP report stated above

Uganda moves to organic agriculture is an excellent case study for green economics as it benefits the 3 main pillars of sustainability, People (Social), Plants (Environment) and Profits (Economic). On the People aspect, farmers are less exposed to harmful chemical from the pesticide. This breakthrough also opens job opportunities as organic farmers. On the Profits aspect, it generates more profits from export as organic crops’ price is higher than conventional crops. For example, organic pineapple costs 300% more than conventional crops. Although the price is more expensive, the demand remains high as people become more aware of the benefits of eating organic produce. On the Plants aspect, the GHG emission per ha of land is 64% less in organic farm compared to conventional farm. Also, farmers do not introduce chemical products into nature, reducing soil and water pollution greatly.

Organic pineapple farmer in Uganda. Image taken from monitor.co.ug

This green economy has turned challenges into benefits for Uganda. Poor Uganda farmers have limited access to the pesticides conventional farmers used. However, Uganda creates a comparative advantage instead of riding the trend on organic crops. Soon, I believe the demand for organic crops will continue to rise especially when social media keep exposing the nasty chemical used in pesticides.

Even though this green economy sounds great, it may not apply to every less affluent countries because it has some limitations. Firstly, the crop yield of an organic farm is roughly 20-30% lower. Moreover, as manure is needed to replace chemical fertilizers, more animals need to be raised. There might not be enough grazing land in a country with limited land resources. Studies calculated that around 400 million extra hectares (4 million km2) are needed if the US replaced all its crops with organic crops.

Therefore, in countries where agriculture cannot support local demand like Indonesia, or countries facing a rapid increase in population like China, organic farming may not be the best green economy to adopt. However, in Vietnam, the highest exporter of rice, this measure may benefit it greatly socially, economically and environmentally.