A smallholder tomato farmer in the northwestern Uganda region of West Nile sprays his half-acre tomato garden without adequate protection. Many farmers around the country interact with hazardous agro-chemicals without using adequate PPEs. COURTESY PHOTO/SASAKAWA AFRICA ASSOCIATION.
A consortium of civil society organisations (CSOs) has in a Jan.05 statement shown concern about the continued wrong use of dangerous pesticides in the country.
Members of the concerned CSOs mainly work to promote sustainable agricultural trade, food safety and sovereignty, climate justice, biodiversity restoration, and human and environmental rights.
The activists say there are growing concerns about pesticide misuse, including improper application and storage, counterfeit products, insufficient training in use, and use of poorly maintained or totally inadequate spraying equipment.
The activists insist the agriculture ministry should deregister at least 55 agro-chemicals that it registered in 2023 well-knowing that the same pesticides, herbicides and insecticides are banned by the European Union, a major market of Uganda’s agricultural produce.
Glyphosate-based herbicides, in particular, have raised significant alarm due to their potential environmental and health risks. Globally, they have been linked to contamination of water sources, soil degradation, and potential carcinogenic effects on humans.
In Uganda, glyphosate which appears in brands such as Rounduo and Weed Master, is widely used, especially among large-scale commercial farms and in weed control.
Betty Rose Aguti, the Policy and Advocacy Specialist at Caritas-Uganda who also doubles as the National Coordinator of Uganda Farmers Common Voice Platform says Uganda’s smallholder farmers need to be guided on the danger posed by some agro-chemicals.
“No one is guiding them on what to do with the agro-chemicals. Nobody is telling the farmers which agro-chemicals to use in what type of soils or on which type of crops and thereafter, what period of time they should take before they harvest.
“We have scenarios where some of these farmers apply these agro-chemicals bare-chested with no face masks and other protective gear; these farmers are using agro-chemicals as though they are using ordinary water.”
“They spray their gardens as they converse with their children and wives. In the course of doing this, they are inhaling the chemicals and after some time, they fall victim to the toxicity of these agro-chemicals and end up flooding the Uganda Cancer Institute,” she says.
What are pesticides?
Pesticides are defined by UN agencies; the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the World Health Organization (WHO), as substances or mixture of substances of chemicals or biological ingredients intended for repelling, destroying or controlling any pest, or regulating plant growth.
These often include ingredients that modify pest behaviour or their physiology (insect repellents) or affect crops during production or storage (herbicide safeners and synergists, germination inhibitors), as well as insecticides, fungicides and herbicides.
However, according to the activists, most of the chemicals on the Ugandan market are quite hazardous to both human health and the environment and yet they continue being used inappropriately by Ugandan smallholder farmers.
An agro-chemicals dealer displays a wide array of brands of pesticides, herbicides and insecticides that are available in his shop in Kampala. INDEPENDENT/ALFRED OCHWO.
“We call upon the government of Uganda to regulate and ban all hazardous pesticides especially glyphosate and chlorpyriphos on the market in Uganda,” said Jane Nalunga, the Executive Director of the Uganda chapter of the Southern and Eastern Africa Trade Information and Negotiations Institute (SEATINI), a regional NGO that promotes pro-development trade, fiscal and investment-related poicies and processes.
Backbone of Uganda’s economy
The activists say Uganda’s agriculture sector is the mainstay of Uganda’s economy as it remains the main source of food, raw materials for industries, and employment of about 70% of Ugandans. The sector contributes about 24% to the country’s GDP.
“We cannot allow people with intellectual dishonesty to continue playing with the sector,” one of the activists said on Jan.5 during a press conference at the SEATINI-Uganda headquarters in Kampala. “We are aware that pesticides are significantly impacting health, biodiversity, socio-economic well-being, trade, and food security,” added Nalunga.
According to a 2020 World Health Organisation report, about 385 million cases of unintentional pesticide poisoning, including 11,000 deaths, mostly in low- and middle-income countries such as Uganda, are registered annually worldwide. According to UNICEF, pregnant and breastfeeding mothers, children under the age of five and the elderly are the most vulnerable to the effects of pesticides.
The activists say increased use of highly hazardous pesticides in Uganda is a threat to the right to adequate food, people’s livelihoods and farmers’ rights. They say pesticide runoff is reducing aquatic species diversity by 42% and threatening pollinators like bees. These insects are particularly critical for 75% of global crop production.
According to the European Environmental Agency, pesticides are intrinsically harmful to living organisms. When used outdoors, they can impact ecosystems even when they are intended to exclusively target a specific pest.
Herbert Kafeero, the Programme Manager at SEATINI-Uganda says the use of hazardous pesticides also has implications for trade. He says, in 2015, the government of Uganda imposed a self-ban on the export of agricultural produce to the EU because agro-chemical residues had been found in Uganda’s agricultural produce. “The self-ban was meant to address the challenges that were cited by the EU,” he says, “So we cannot ignore the fact that hazardous pesticides negatively impact the country’s trade and food security.”
He says, at the time, the government committed to retrain farmers and exporters to the EU regarding the EU’s sanitary and phytosanitary standards. Kafeero says the government must find solutions to the mushrooming agro-chemical dealers on the market.
“In every trading centre, you will not miss finding an agro-chemical shop and the person operating that agro-chemical shop presents himself as an expert when they actually are not.”
The activists want the Agricultural Chemicals Control Board under the Ministry of Agriculture, Animal Industry and Fisheries to quickly profile the various agrochemicals, acaricides and inputs and their various sources that are available on the market in Uganda and ban the highly hazardous ones.
They also want the Department of Crop Inspection and Certification at the agriculture ministry to strengthen the regulation, management, use, handling, storage and trade of agrochemicals in the country.
They also want the government and other stakeholders to purposively plan and budget for education and awareness on the management, use, handling, storage and trade of agrochemicals in Uganda.
Prof. Ogenga Latigo disagrees
The activists were infact responding to Morris Ogenga Latigo, a Ugandan professor of entomology (study of insects) who had written an opinion on December 31, 2024, downplaying civil society’s concerns about hazardous pesticide and insecticide use in Uganda.
Prof. Ogenga Latigo in his article said the issue of agro-chemical use on farm pests and weeds and households was being exaggerated by civil society. He said the targeted agro-chemical inputs (pesticides, insecticides and herbicides) were being used in other countries.
The acrimonious debate has since sucked in the agricuture ministry. Stephen Byantware, the Director in charge of Crop Protection at the agriculture ministry told the media in Kampala recently that Uganda has an Agriculture Police Force and a Department of Inspection and Certification of agriculture inputs that “ensure that only nationally and globally approved agro-chemicals enter the Ugandan market.”
“The chemicals allowed into the country are those that have been approved,” he said, “There are no banned products on sale in Uganda. You cannot find DDT or Endosulfan in Uganda.”
Agrochemicals spraying equipment on display at a dealership in Kampala. INDEPENDENT/ALFRED OCHWO.
But David Kabanda, the Executive Director of the Centre for Food and Adequate Living Rights, a Kampala-based non-profit, says Ugandans should know that hazardous pesticides have become one of the “loudest killers” and yet Ugandan smallholder farmers continue to associate with these chemicals on the farms, in the food stores, and in the homes.
“It’s only in Uganda where we don’t have a farmgate policy and yet we have scientific reports that have pointed out that the food we buy in markets in Kampala is contaminated.” “Don’t we see tomatoes and broccoli full of Mancozeb fungicide yet this chemical has been banned everywhere including the EU?”
“Pesticides are silent killers of humans, of nature, of our soils that are getting barren, of our water, of our agri-food system. I don’t imagine an agri-food system in Uganda without bees, without butterflies, and above all, without grasshoppers,” said Agnes Kirabo, the Executive Director of Food Rights Alliance (FRA).
Desperate smallholder farmers
According to the activists, Uganda’s agriculture system is by default largely organic but in recent years, pest and disease management has become one of the major production constraints for the country’s millions of subsistence farmers. And in recent years, farmers have turned to pesticides to control the pests.
According to the Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) of the United Nations, the number of agricultural pesticides used in Uganda doubled in 12 years (2010 – 2022) from 2,990.23 tonnes to 6,009.78 tonnes.
Similarly, the monetary value of pesticides imported to Uganda more than doubled from US$ 32.57 million to US$75.87 million in 2022 with a peak import value of US$108.57 million reported in 2020. The lucrative agro-chemical business has attracted more than 40 registered pesticide importing companies in the country.
The activists say the increased use of pesticides is attributed to their use for weeding and the increased use of hybrid seeds and livestock. According to the CSOs, equally alarming is that many of these pesticides are “synthetic pesticides” which are persistent organic chemicals.
A study published last year by the Food Safety Coalition Uganda (FoSCU) titled: ‘‘Food Safety-Crop Protection Nexus: Insights from the Uganda’s agriculture sector,’’ noted that of the legally registered active ingredients, 47.8% (of the active ingredients) and 68.6% of the brands in Uganda qualified as “Highly Hazardous Pesticides.”
Highly Hazardous Pesticides (HHPs) are classified as “reproductive toxicants” meaning they potentially can negatively affect the human reproductive system and have adverse effects on pregnancy outcomes and reduced fertility.
The same study noted that 15.6% of the registered active ingredients and 19.2% of the registered brands in Uganda qualified as highly hazardous pesticides in accordance with the FAO/WHO-Joint Meeting on Pesticide Management (JMPM) criteria.
According to the activists, by July 2023, over 65% of the 55 flagged active ingredients registered for use in Uganda and yet considered as highly hazardous pesticides according to the Pesticide Action Network (PAN) criteria, were not approved for use in the European Union economic bloc.
The majority (49%) of these pesticides are highly toxic to bees, 20% are carcinogenic and reproductive toxicants while 18% are probable carcinogens, and 9% are highly persistent in water and soil and are highly toxic to aquatic organisms.
They say that, based on the Uganda agrochemical register at the Ministry of Agriculture, Animal Industry and Fisheries (MAAIF) and the National Drug Authority (NDA), the country had at least 115 active ingredients and 669 brands of synthetic pesticides legally registered for use in Uganda by the end of 2023.
“These are presenting in 459 brands, but all these active ingredients in the 459 brands, according to the PAN, are classified as highly hazardous,” said Bernard Bwambale, the head of programmes at the Global Consumer Centre, or CONSENT, who also coordinates the activities on food safety at the Food Safety Coalition of Uganda.
If it is hazardous in EU, it is hazardous in Uganda
Bwambale says his organisation has found that of the 55 active ingredients registered in Uganda, 65.5% of them cannot be used in their countries of origin. “Now, if a chemical, a highly hazardous chemical, is produced in a particular country and that country cannot use it, who are we to start thinking that we can use it? This is where our concern is.”
“So, whatever is not used in the EU, it means it’s not fit for use for human beings. The human beings in Uganda and the human beings in Europe are all human beings. And we are all sharing the same human rights.” He says some of the highly hazardous pesticides are mutagenic, meaning they can alter one’s DNA or genetic make-up.
“Literally, it would mean that when you consume food consisting of this kind of product, you stand a risk of your DNA or your genetic makeup being altered. And that is why some research is pointing to some of these chemicals being responsible for birth defects.” He says other chemicals are carcinogenic, meaning the chemical has the potential to cause cancer.
But Prof. Ogenga Latigo says some chemicals like Mancozeb the civil society claim are carcinogenic are not. He describes others as ‘probable carcinogens.’ A probable carcinogen is a substance that has a strong but not conclusive amount of evidence that it can cause cancer in humans.
But Bwambale says, “They don’t want people to keep confusing us with science.” He says other chemicals have been considered fatal when inhaled. “Imagine a farmer who doesn’t know these things and is spraying but is carrying a baby. So both the mother and the baby are inhaling this chemical,” he says, “We need to regulate these chemicals as much as we can.”
He says recent studies have indicated that some of these chemicals were found in human bodies –in sweat, urine and blood, in food and in water. “When the Europeans send us, for instance, these chemicals and we buy them, they also have regulations on which kind of food we can sell to them. We all know that.”
He says when farmers use these chemicals in the name of commercialising agriculture, they may produce very big tomatoes that do not rot, for example, but they cannot sell them beyond Uganda.
“You cannot put them on the EU market because they don’t meet the standard of the EU market. So they (agriculture products still remain with us,” he says.
Uganda has emerged as Africa’s leading country in organic agriculture, recording the continent’s largest area of certified organic farmland as it prepares to host Africa’s first Organic and Nature Expo (ONE).
The latest Uganda Organic Agriculture Sector Statistics 2021–2025 show that the country had an estimated 744,288 certified organic farmers cultivating approximately 930,360 hectares of certified organic farmland by 2025.
The statistics were released on Friday during the launch of the first Organic and Nature Expo, which will take place alongside the fifth National Organic Week from November 4 to 7, 2026, at Hotel Africana in Kampala.
According to the report, Uganda’s organic agriculture sector has recorded sustained growth, with the number of certified organic farmers increasing from 211,584 in 2018 to 744,288 in 2025, representing an average annual growth rate of 19.7 per cent.
Organic exports have also increased significantly, rising from an estimated $123.3 million in 2018 to $225.7 million in 2025. Ugandan organic products are exported to markets in the European Union, the United States, Japan and the wider region.
Chariton Namuwoza, Chief Executive Officer of the National Organic Agricultural Movement of Uganda (NOGAMU), said the figures demonstrate the growing importance of organic agriculture to Uganda’s economy and international trade.
“These numbers confirm what the sector has long known: organic agriculture is one of Uganda’s strongest positions in global trade, and a genuine national asset,” Namuwoza said.
The statistics further show that the number of certified organic operators increased from 65 in 2018 to 439 in 2025, representing a 575 per cent increase over the seven-year period.
NOGAMU and its partners also mapped 493 active organic sector actors across 58 districts. These include producers and farmer groups, exporters, processors, cooperatives and agricultural input dealers.
Uganda’s organic product catalogue now lists 95 distinct products and 403 variants across 11 categories. The report also identifies opportunities for further growth in value addition, particularly in high-volume crops such as coffee.
Namuwoza said the sector’s expansion presents opportunities to link organic production with enterprise development, trade, investment and sustainable environmental practices.
The statistics are also expected to provide an evidence base for policymakers as Uganda advances the development of its National Organic Agriculture Bill.
The upcoming ONE Expo is being organised by NOGAMU in collaboration with the Ministry of Agriculture, Animal Industry and Fisheries (MAAIF), the African Organic Network (AfrONet) and other partners.
The four-day event is expected to bring together more than 2,000 participants, including producers, processors, exporters, buyers, investors, financiers, development partners and policymakers from across Africa.
The programme will feature a conference on organic and regenerative agriculture, business-to-business meetings, a regenerative coffee day, exhibitions and organised tours to farms, value-addition centres, and processor and cooperative enterprises.
According to the organisers, the expo will showcase Uganda’s organic agriculture sector while creating opportunities for producers and businesses to access markets, financing, technology and strategic partnerships.
The event will be held under the theme “Competitive Partnerships: Organic and Regenerative Innovations: Africa’s Edge.”
A grape fruit farmer from Kaplabweng District showcasing his grape fruits at the recently concluded Trade Show at UMA show grounds in Kampala. Photo | Lominda Afedraru
While farmers in Teso region are known for commercial growing of oranges, some of them have found a niche in growing grapefruit.
During the recently concluded Trade Show at the Uganda Manufacturers Association (UMA) showground, selected farmers displayed the rare grapefruit, appealing to many.
The orange-like fruit weighed about 1- 2kg.
In Science Direct, a scientific publication, experts say grapefruit (citrus paradise) is a heavy citrus fruit that originated as hybrid of a variety called pomelo crossed to sweet orange, characterised by its oblate shape.
The varieties are both seed and seedless, with red and white flesh attributed to carotene and lycopene pigments.
Grapefruits, with 6 percent of world production, are the fourth most important commercial group within the edible citrus species, with China leading in production.
Stable production over the last 20 years is now being influenced by new cultivars having lower acid levels and red pigmented flesh.
These factors are creating renewed interest by growers, marketers and consumers for fruit or processed products.
Dr Gabriel Ddamulira, the programme leader, Horticulture and Oil Palm Programme said interested farmers picked scion for grafting and processing seedlings from an old orchard at NaSARR in Serere and Ngetta Zonal Agricultural Research and Development Institute in Lira.
“It is not true that only a few farmers picked interest in growing grapefruits in the Teso region. They picked and multiplied these as individual seedling multipliers for farmer adoption,” he said.
The fruit produces a lot of juice and is believed to be medicinal but the challenge is that it has specialised market since most Ugandan fruit consumers do not know about it.
“Currently, the fruit is not one of priority plants for research as gazetted by the Agriculture ministry. But we keep it as germplasm for future use and this does not stop farmers from growing it if they have identified market for it,” Dr Ddamulira says.
Health benefits
There are several health benefits associated with fresh citrus consumption, such as being a source of Vitamin C, dietary fibre, folate and potassium.
The experts say grapefruit is a nutrient dense citrus fruit that is also low in calories, and provides an antioxidant that protects cells from bacteria and viruses.
It also contains Vitamin A and beta-carotene to help fight inflammation and high water and fibre content can reduce overall calorie intake, which lowers blood pressure.
Farmers’ take
Most farmers growing grape fruit are concentrated in Serere District because it was easy to obtain the seedlings from the research institute.
Mr James Oriokot, a farmer and director of Eden Farm Products in Amuria District has allocated five acres for grapefruit farming.
He ventured into growing grapefruit in 2008 having identified a market potential with Koreans and Chinese who are working in Teso Sub-region.
“The fruit grows in two years and its starts fruiting. One tree can produce over 30 fruits and we sell each fruit at Shs10,000, though the farm gate price is Shs5,000 per fruit,” Ariokot says.
He also multiplies seedlings, selling the six-month-old propagated seedlings at Shs100, 000 while the three months seedling goes for Shs50,000.
He encourages farmers in other parts of the country to embrace grapefruit farming for export market.
“Apparently, the Asians are purchasing it for local consumption but they have intentions to purchase in bulk for export,” he says.
Origin
Grape fruit was introduced in Uganda in the I990s by agricultural scientists from Food and Agriculture Organisation, particularly in the National Agricultural Semi-Arid Resources Research Institute (NaSARRI) where farmers picked seedlings.
Smallholder farmers across Africa feed hundreds of millions of people; they produce most of the continent’s food, yet they are often the first to go hungry. For decades, governments, international agencies, and corporate capital have sold them various “solutions”: improved seeds, chemical fertilisers, pesticide packages, promising that adoption of these technologies would raise yields and end poverty.
More than half a century later, Africa’s soils are not more fertile; farmers’ debts are deeper. Seed is monopolised, fertiliser is priced in dollars, and agrotoxics soak into the land, bodies of farmers and consumers of agricultural produce. Against this backdrop, an ancient practice that is at the heart of agriculture and this conversation is “Agroecology”. It is not a new technology, but the integration of generational peasant and indigenous knowledge with ecological science. This article asks: can Agroecology strengthen the resilience of African smallholder farmers? Can it help them stand firmer in the face of soil degradation, climate crisis, and market coercion?
The Systemic Crisis Facing African Smallholder Farmers
The crisis African smallholder farmers face is not a set of isolated technical problems; it is systemic [1].
Export-oriented monocultures, such as cotton in West Africa and cocoa in Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire, continuously extract nutrients from the soil, shipping them abroad as crops whose nutrients are rarely returned to the fields from which they were taken. Marx described this process as a disruption of the “metabolic interaction between man and the earth”, whereby capitalist production interferes with the return of nutrients to the soil and undermines its long-term fertility [2]. The term “metabolic rift” was later developed by sociologist John Bellamy Foster to conceptualise this ecological contradiction within Marx’s broader analysis of capitalism and nature [3]. Imported mineral fertiliser, priced in dollars, is then presented as the remedy for a depletion that the export economy itself has helped create [4]. This dependence on external inputs extends beyond fertiliser to seeds and agrochemicals, further embedding farmers in commercially controlled production systems. Transnational seed and agrichemical corporations use patents, proprietary varieties and hybrid technologies to strengthen control over seed systems, increasingly shifting farmers from saving and exchanging seed to purchasing commercial varieties. Fertiliser, pesticides and commercial seed are also increasingly brought together through integrated input packages, requiring farmers to purchase multiple external inputs with cash each season and potentially increasing their exposure to debt. For example, Bayer’s FoodWings initiative in Côte d’Ivoire offers smallholder farmers an “all-in-one” production package built around DEKALB hybrid maize seed, herbicides and insecticides, while franchisee partners procure additional fertiliser and provide financing [5]. Such arrangements demonstrate how seed, crop protection chemicals, fertiliser and credit can become interconnected within a single production system, deepening farmers’ dependence on purchased inputs and external suppliers. These economic and ecological pressures are further compounded by climate change. Africa contributes relatively little to global greenhouse gas emissions. In 2023, the 55 countries of the African Union accounted for approximately 6% of global greenhouse gas emissions, with average per-capita emissions of about 2.2 tonnes of CO₂ equivalent, compared with a global average of 6.6 tonnes [6]. Yet the continent remains highly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change, including rising temperatures, changing rainfall patterns and increasing risks to agriculture and food security [7]. For smallholder farmers, irregular rainfall, prolonged droughts and rising temperatures are not distant projections but increasingly immediate realities that affect agricultural production, yields and livelihoods. Taken together, soil depletion, dependence on purchased agricultural inputs and climate instability reinforce one another, deepening the structural vulnerability of African smallholder farmers and constraining their ability to exercise control over the resources and means of production.
Agroecology: Peasant Knowledge, Ecological Science and Autonomy
Before discussing resilience, it is important to clarify what Agroecology entails and how it differs from approaches that seek to make industrial agriculture more environmentally efficient. Approaches such as regenerative agriculture and climate-smart agriculture can incorporate practices such as reduced tillage, precision fertilisation and improved resource-use efficiency while remaining embedded in production systems that depend heavily on purchased seed, fertilisers and chemical inputs [8]. Agroecology, by contrast, places greater emphasis on the ecological relationships within the farming system and on the knowledge and autonomy of those who produce [9].
Agroecology is grounded in principles of diversity, synergy, recycling and efficiency. Diversity means maintaining polycultures and integrating different crops, livestock, trees and other elements rather than organising production around monocultures. Synergy refers to the relationships between these components, whereby they complement and reinforce one another. Recycling means keeping nutrients and organic matter within the production system through practices such as composting and the use of locally produced bioinputs, thereby reducing dependence on external inputs. Efficiency places emphasis on ecological and biological processes that sustain production while reducing reliance on chemically intensive interventions. Compost, bioinputs, native and locally adapted seed, and agroforestry are therefore not isolated “green technologies”. They form part of an integrated logic of production built around ecological relationships, local knowledge and the productive capacities of the farming community.
This is also why Agroecology cannot be understood simply as a technical package. It has important political and economic dimensions because it raises questions about control over the productive resources on which farming depends: who owns the land, who controls seed, who produces fertiliser, and who determines the technologies available to farmers? When a farmer cooperative produces its own biofertiliser, saves and exchanges its own seed, and produces its own compost, it strengthens its control over essential elements of production and reduces dependence on external input suppliers. In this sense, agroecology can contribute not only to ecological resilience but also to greater peasant autonomy and food sovereignty.
The Four Dimensions of Resilience
Agroecology strengthens smallholder resilience across four dimensions.
Ecological resilience: Agroecology strengthens ecological resilience by using compost and organic matter management to raise soil organic matter within a single cropping cycle, making it one of the soil fractions that peasants can rebuild relatively quickly. Diverse planting reduces pest and disease risks, while agroforestry systems improve water retention and microclimate regulation. In Tanzania, MVIWATA (Mtandao wa Vikundi vya Wakulima Tanzania, the National Network of Small Scale Farmers’ Groups) runs soil biology training, teaching farmers to “read” their soil with their own eyes and hands, without a laboratory or outside expert.
Economic resilience: Agroecology strengthens economic resilience by enabling cooperatives to produce biofertilisers and compost collectively, reducing dependence on external inputs. This can mean lower cash expenditure, less exposure to debt, and reduced vulnerability to currency fluctuations. The popular biofactory, owned not by an entrepreneur but by a settlement, a union, or a cooperative, produces fertility that cannot be patented. Its by-product is the collective capacity of the peasants who operate it.
Social resilience: Agroecology builds social resilience by strengthening farmer-to-farmer knowledge exchange, community seed banks, and cooperative organisation, which together form part of the social fabric of rural resilience. The MST (Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra, the Landless Workers’ Movement in Brazil) and its itinerant schools, alongside MVIWATA’s training programmes in Tanzania, demonstrate how the horizontal circulation of agroecological knowledge can simultaneously strengthen collective organisation and action.
Political resilience: Agroecology advances political resilience by strengthening farmers’ control over seed, fertility and soil, thereby increasing their bargaining power. Food sovereignty, understood as the right of peoples to define and control their own food systems, is therefore not simply a slogan but a political dimension of agroecological practice.
Evidence and Cases from Across Africa
Agroecology is not a new practice introduced to African farmers. Long before the term Agroecology entered contemporary scientific discourse, indigenous and rural communities across Africa, Asia and Latin America had developed and practised diverse systems based on principles that are today associated with Agroecology. Across the African continent, farmers have long relied on practices such as crop diversification, intercropping, agroforestry, soil and water conservation, nutrient recycling and the use of locally available resources, adapting these practices to the distinct ecological and social conditions of the continent.
In West Africa, agroecology is being tested against some of the continent’s most degraded soils and most deeply entrenched export crop economies. Decades of cotton, cocoa and groundnut monocropping have mined soils of their organic matter, leaving smallholders dependent on imported fertiliser priced in dollars.
Yet the same landscape is generating some of the most creative responses. In Ghana, the West Africa Agroecology Foundation (WAAF) has worked extensively with cocoa farmers in the Ahafo, Bono and Western North regions, supporting transitions away from chemical-dependent monoculture towards diversified, shade-managed cocoa systems. These systems rebuild soil fertility through composting, mulching and intercropping with food crops.
In the country’s north, where Sahelian conditions meet the savannah, farmer groups have established community compost sites and biofactory initiatives using local materials, including crop residues, animal manure and household waste. These initiatives rebuild soil organic matter without purchased inputs, demonstrating that mined land can be restored through collective labour.
Elsewhere in West Africa, similar principles are being applied to the restoration of degraded landscapes. In Niger, Farmer Managed Natural Regeneration (FMNR) has restored millions of hectares of degraded Sahelian land by regenerating indigenous trees from seemingly dead stumps at almost no cost.
In Burkina Faso, the zai pits and half-moon water-harvesting techniques of the central plateau have enabled Sahelian peasant farmers to produce food on land that had been written off as lost.
Meanwhile, in Senegal and Mali, peasant platforms, namely the Conseil National de Concertation et de Cooperation des Ruraux (CNCR), the National Council for Rural Consultation and Cooperation, and the Coordination Nationale des Organisations Paysannes (CNOP), the National Coordination of Peasant Organisations, connect agroecological practice with food-sovereignty policy advocacy. They demonstrate that technical practice and political mobilisation can advance together.
Across these West African experiences, the transition does not depend primarily on capital-intensive technology. Rather, it depends on organisation, collective labour and the recovery and development of local knowledge systems that colonial and post-colonial export economies sought to marginalise.
Building on these experiences, East Africa offers some of the continent’s structured examples of how agroecological knowledge can be organised through farmer networks. In Tanzania, Mtandao wa Vikundi vya Wakulima Tanzania (MVIWATA) has integrated soil biology, bioinput production and seed saving into its farmer training programmes. Remineraliser work, which involves applying rock dust to rebuild soil minerals, has also been field-tested in Tanzanian contexts, adapting elements of Ana Primavesi’s tropical soil science to African savannah conditions. In Kenya, push-pull intercropping demonstrates how diversified planting can simultaneously contribute to pest management, soil fertility and crop production while reducing reliance on chemical inputs. These experiences extend the West African lesson: when agroecological knowledge is generated, adapted and shared through farmer networks rather than delivered solely through hierarchical extension systems, it can strengthen not only ecological capacity but also collective agency.
This relationship between ecological transformation and political organisation becomes even more explicit in Southern Africa. In Zimbabwe, the Zimbabwe Smallholder Organic Farmers’ Forum (ZIMSOFF) has promoted agroecological conversion in the context of land reform, demonstrating how changes in land ownership and control can create greater space for changes in farming practice. The Zimbabwean experience therefore reinforces a broader principle emerging across the continent: control over land is an important foundation for agroecological transformation. Where farmers have greater control over the land and productive resources on which their livelihoods depend, ecological resilience can be pursued alongside economic and political autonomy. Resilience without sovereignty is therefore incomplete.
The same relationship between ecological pressure, local knowledge and collective adaptation is evident in North Africa, although under markedly different climatic conditions. North Africa faces severe ecological pressures, particularly water scarcity, recurrent drought and increasing aridity [8]. Morocco, for example, has experienced drought approximately every three years since the beginning of the twentieth century, placing sustained pressure on agricultural production and rural livelihoods [9].
Yet these pressures have not erased the region’s long history of agroecological adaptation. Across the Maghreb, communities have maintained knowledge systems for managing scarce water and cultivating difficult landscapes.
Likewise, in Morocco’s argan forests, the Union des Cooperatives des Femmes de l’Arganeraie (UCFA), the Union of Cooperatives of Women of the Argan Forest, comprising 22 cooperatives, demonstrates how community-managed agroforestry can support both ecological conservation and rural livelihoods.
These practices show that agroecological knowledge in North Africa is not an imported response to climate change but part of a much longer history of collective adaptation to environmental constraints.
At the same time, however, the survival of this knowledge is increasingly challenged by the political and economic organisation of natural resources. Egypt’s Nile Delta faces serious salinisation pressures, while the Great Green Wall initiative has struggled to meet its restoration ambitions. Across the region, centralised water control, export-oriented agriculture and policy neglect can weaken the institutions through which communities have historically managed land, water and ecological resources. North Africa therefore reinforces the broader continental pattern: the knowledge and practices necessary for ecological resilience already exist in many rural communities, but their continued development depends on whether farmers and communities retain meaningful control over the resources, institutions and productive systems on which that knowledge depends.
From Resilience to Sovereignty
Resilience is necessary, but resilience alone is insufficient. A farmer who can absorb shocks but cannot decide what to plant, what to save, or at what price to sell remains systemically constrained. True resilience must extend into sovereignty, specifically food sovereignty. This means not only producing food but having the right to decide how to produce, for whom, and on what terms. The technical practice of Agroecology and the political demand for food sovereignty are two sides of the same coin.
Challenges
This article does not present agroecology as a panacea. The constraints facing African smallholders are real: land fragmentation, water scarcity, labour shortages, state policies still biased towards industrial agriculture, and continuous corporate lobbying. The transition from chemical inputs to agroecological management requires time, and yields may dip during the conversion period. Not every region has an existing community organisation to support collective action.
These limitations are not reasons to abandon the path, but they demand honest engagement rather than slogans.
Conclusion
Can agroecology strengthen the resilience of African smallholder farmers? The evidence says: yes. But this “yes” is not automatic. It depends on whether farmers can organise collectively to reclaim seed, fertility, and soil; whether policy shifts from subsidising chemical inputs to supporting cooperative biofactories, compost sites, and farmer schools; and whether grassroots movements can weld technical practice to political demand.
For farmer organisations: build community seed banks, produce bioinputs collectively, and run farmer to farmer knowledge exchanges. For policymakers: stop using public money to subsidise imported fertiliser and commercial seed, and invest instead in cooperative biofactories, compost stations, and peasant schools. For everyone who cares about Africa’s future: support food sovereignty, not merely “food security”.
Land, seed, soil, and food belong to those who work them. This is not an ideal; it is a reality being built.
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