The UK Soil Association is busy debating the merits of banning the import of African organic produce. Why? Because they’re flown thousands of miles before they reach stores in the UK.

The battle: just who is to blame for climate change – poor African farmers who export their produce by air or Western consumers who care about the environmental impact of ‘food miles’.

And it’s no surprise that UK farmers are behind the ban – African organic produce from countries like Kenya are a threat to their welfare.

But to return to the case at hand. If the Soil Association imposes a ban, because of the carbon emitted by air transport, air-freighted products will effectively lose their organic status as they will be labelled as ‘air-freighted produce’, responsible for air miles.

The result of this ban is that tens of thousands of smallholders across Africa stand to lose their livelihoods, forcing African farmers back into poverty and subsistence farming.

The farmers in Africa that have worked for years to get organic certification create on average 30 times less CO2 than UK citizens (World Bank figures).

London's Cranfield University in a recent study calculated that roses grown in Kenya saved more CO2 than if the flowers were grown in Holland. This is because of the greater use of renewable energy sources in Kenya compared to the high energy consumption in Holland. Even factoring in the CO2 from the air transport, the African produce has still created less CO2 emissions than the European produce.

At the moment, organic produce is the fastest growth area of Africa’s horticultural industry. In Kenya, it’s the largest export after tourism – this goes for Ethiopia, Uganda and Tanzania as well. And don’t forget the chain of other industries from packaging to transport that rely on this export. This will probably affect the South African industry directly too. Whilst our organic export market is not as large as other African countries, a lot of our organic produce is exported.

Fair? You decide.[guardian]