Organic farming has been professed as a way out of food insecurity and poverty in Africa. However, the holistic assessment of the contribution of the organic farming system to smallholder farmers‘ livelihoods is lacking. Little has been done to directly assess food security impacts of the system or its contribution to the domestic selling organic farmers‘ incomes and general livelihoods. No attempts have been madeto ascertain the contribution of organic farming to farmer‘s health. Thisstudy was conducted to assess the impact of organic farming on exporting and domestic selling smallholder farming householdsin Tanzania as well asestablishingthe future prospects of organic markets for tropical fruits. The study aimed i) assess the factors influencing the adoption of organic farmingamong smallholder farmersii) assess the impacts of organic farming on smallholder farmers‘ revenues under different forms of farmer organization and market linkagesiii) assess the impact of organic farmingon household food security iv) assess the impacts of organic farming and export trade on farmer health, and lastly, v) assess the future prospects of European organic markets for tropicalorganic fruits. The study areas involved in Tanzania were Bagamoyo in the Pwani region, Karagwe in the Kagera region and Njombe in the Iringa region. Over 320 UK respondents participated in the consumer study and a total of488 smallholder pineapple farmers were recruited for farmers‘ surveyin Tanzania. Roughly half of the smallholder farmers involved were organic and half conventional from both domesticsellingand exporting sectors. Older farmers with smaller farms and located further from urban markets were more likely to adopt organic farming. Economic and monetary reasons were the overriding motivations for adoption of organic farming. Only exporting organic farmers involved in the export schemes had significantly higher incomes than their conventional counterparts. The domestic selling and partly exporting farmers had similar or worse revenues compared to conventional farmers. Likewise, organic farming was found to improve household food security only for contractually linked, exporting organic farmers. Again only contractually linked exporting organic farmers had consistently better health scores compared to conventional farmers. The conjoint analysis in the UK revealed two consumer segments with the price-sensitive category comprising about 60% of the consumers. Distance travelled and means of transport of the fruitshad little importance on the buying decisions with no local alternative available. Fair-trade fruits were preferred to organic and conventional in that order. While the future of tropical organic exports at the European markets remains promising, the holistic contribution of organic farming on smallholder farmers‘ livelihoods in SSA shows the benefits are limited to a few lucky farmers with contractual linkages to export markets. Governments, NGOs and other organic farming stakeholders may wish to invest in securing and maintaining more export markets if the benefits of organic farming are to be realized. Developing domestic organic markets concurrent with the supporting domestic market infrastructure might be a long termalternative.