Pillar III: Value Chain and Market Development (VCMD)
Agriculture being a socially and economically crosscutting enterprise, this pillar aims to promote interventions based on a holistic approach along the organic value chains to stimulate development of sustainable markets and to increase trade in traditional and high value agricultural produce and products at domestic and export levels. Internally, this process is based on the Participatory Guarantee System (PGS)/Internal Control System (ICS) that builds the social and entrepreneurial capacity of producers and processors to work together on agreed organic standards. In this respect, there is a need for recognition and licensing the East African Organic Products Standard (EAOPS) also called Kilimohai‘, which was developed through a consultative regional public-private partnership and adopted as the official East African Community (EAC) organic standard in 2007. In the same vein this pillar will facilitate the development of West African organic standards.