Mr. Constantin is a 45-year old farmer and lives together with his wife and child in the Tighina region in the Republic Moldova. Mr. Constatin studied physics and worked as an inspector for the Ministry of Education. However, in the 1990s the Government sector was plagued with many problems; salaries were often not paid, or only very late.
After having worked as an inspector for almost 15 years, Mr. Constatin decided to switch into horticulture, hoping that this would provide him and his family with a more stable income. He had taken over the land that was previously cultivated by his parents. Due to the lack of financial means, he was severely constrained further developing his horticulture venture.
Then, in 2002, Mr. Constatin was able to secure a loan from the Rural Economic Development Fund, a fund managed by the National Farmers Federation Moldova (NFFM). With these funds he was able to set-up a nursery in a plastic tunnel greenhouse, allowing him to plant seedling during the winter season already.
Mr. Constatin has been very successful developing his horticulture. In his greenhouse he is growing seedlings (tomato, watermelon, pickles); once the small seedlings are big enough, they are transplanted into other fields; parts of the seedlings are also sold on the local market to other farmers. The production of tomatoes has been excellent; together with colleagues he was able to have sufficient quantity to export to Belarus where he got a premium price for his tomatoes.
“This experience was vey importance for me; with support of NFFM I had to do business planning, reporting etc; I also built up a credit-history. It gave me a lot of confidence in myself. In addition, people around saw that I was able to develop my agriculture business, and they in return had a lot of confidence in me!”
Mr. Constantin is continuing developing his business. He recently started building a new greenhouse of about 3.000 m2.
Wednesday, December 19, 2007
Sunday, December 9, 2007
Monicah Mbeneka Kimeu
Monicah lives in Kandula village of Kyuu location in Mbooni Division, which is in Mbooni West District in Eastern Province of Kenya. She was born in 1944 and got married in 1960 to a farmer and got involved in mixed farming, an activity she has done all her life. Unfortunately, she became widowed in 1987. She had a co-wife who also passed away in 1997, leaving six children (2 girls and 4 boys). She had her own children (2 girls and 4 boys) but one boy passed away in late 2008, leaving a widow with five small children. She is the grandmother of 22 children and great grandmother to three. Her co-wife has 21 grandchildren to date.
Monicah is an active member of several community self help groups. One such group is known as Kandula women group. This group is involved in various development activities to improve the living standard of its members. One of the main challenges this group is struggling with is how to get water enough for irrigating their farms to produce vegetables. She is also a member of the Kikima farmers cooperative society, which is implementing the CoopWorks project.
In farming, Monicah mixes different types of enterprises on her 3 acre plot – on the farm she grows maize, beans, cassava, sweet and English potatoes, apple, mangoes, avocado and macadamia. Horticulture is impossible because there is no irrigation water.
She also plants napier grass for her cows. She has two cows of mixed breed – Sahiwal, one of which she milks to make tea in the morning and in the evening for sale. However, the milk production is not much because there is not enough grass. She also has three dogs.
Monicah is also a coffee farmer and is a member of the Kikima farmers’ cooperative society by virtue of having 200 plants which give her approximately 400 kilograms of coffee each year.
Daily routine
A normal day for Monicah begins at 6 am when she wakes up to milk the cow. She then makes tea, goes to draw water and seeks for animal feeds. By 10 am she goes to the farm and works until about 2 pm when she eats lunch and waters the animals and then takes a brief rest. She will then go to group meetings and come home to prepare an evening meal, when it is available.
Problems/ Challenges she is facing
There are several challenges facing this farmer, as well as others in rural Kenya. These include but are not limited to the following: -
Farm production is limited by unavailability of farm inputs such as manure, fertilizer, spray chemicals, etc and implements because they are too expensive
This type of farming is only subsistence and one may never break out of poverty
Inadequate clean water for drinking and irrigation of vegetables
Suggested solutions
Monicah feels that things could change for the better if several issues are tackleed:
Provision of irrigation water to grow vegetables and other horticultural crops. The Kandula women group has identified a valley that, if dammed, can catch run-off water and then spread by gravity to reach the various farms.
When there is water to grow vegetables, it will be easy to acquire micro loans to advance the production
With a higher income, she will give her cows better nutrition – grass and dairy meal – to improve their production
She feels that kenyans should elect better leaders who can cause development to take place at the grassroots level.
Monicah is an active member of several community self help groups. One such group is known as Kandula women group. This group is involved in various development activities to improve the living standard of its members. One of the main challenges this group is struggling with is how to get water enough for irrigating their farms to produce vegetables. She is also a member of the Kikima farmers cooperative society, which is implementing the CoopWorks project.
In farming, Monicah mixes different types of enterprises on her 3 acre plot – on the farm she grows maize, beans, cassava, sweet and English potatoes, apple, mangoes, avocado and macadamia. Horticulture is impossible because there is no irrigation water.
She also plants napier grass for her cows. She has two cows of mixed breed – Sahiwal, one of which she milks to make tea in the morning and in the evening for sale. However, the milk production is not much because there is not enough grass. She also has three dogs.
Monicah is also a coffee farmer and is a member of the Kikima farmers’ cooperative society by virtue of having 200 plants which give her approximately 400 kilograms of coffee each year.
Daily routine
A normal day for Monicah begins at 6 am when she wakes up to milk the cow. She then makes tea, goes to draw water and seeks for animal feeds. By 10 am she goes to the farm and works until about 2 pm when she eats lunch and waters the animals and then takes a brief rest. She will then go to group meetings and come home to prepare an evening meal, when it is available.
Problems/ Challenges she is facing
There are several challenges facing this farmer, as well as others in rural Kenya. These include but are not limited to the following: -
Farm production is limited by unavailability of farm inputs such as manure, fertilizer, spray chemicals, etc and implements because they are too expensive
This type of farming is only subsistence and one may never break out of poverty
Inadequate clean water for drinking and irrigation of vegetables
Suggested solutions
Monicah feels that things could change for the better if several issues are tackleed:
Provision of irrigation water to grow vegetables and other horticultural crops. The Kandula women group has identified a valley that, if dammed, can catch run-off water and then spread by gravity to reach the various farms.
When there is water to grow vegetables, it will be easy to acquire micro loans to advance the production
With a higher income, she will give her cows better nutrition – grass and dairy meal – to improve their production
She feels that kenyans should elect better leaders who can cause development to take place at the grassroots level.
Sunday, October 7, 2007
With lobby more progress can be made
Agriterra and the ZLTO have already been working together for many years with the federation APA Transilvania in Romania. With the entry of Romania into the EU in 2007, the contents of this cooperation changed, because since then Romania was no longer considered a developing country and, as a result, Agriterra no longer was allowed to finance organisations within Romania.
The entry into the EU, however, did not automatically imply improvement of the situation of the Romanian farmers. More than ever farming organisations have to stand up for the interests of their members and raise their voice, both nationally and internationally.
A Romanian farmer who fights hard for this is Claudiu Franc. Claudiu Franc, a 46-year old veterinary surgeon, studied at the Agricultural University and worked in a state cattle breeding company with 7,000 heads of cattle (dairy cows and young cattle). After three years, at the end of 1989, he returned to his mountainous native region Maramures, known for its cattle breeding and fruit culture. Since 2004 he has been a member of the cattle breeding society there, and also of the local council. Two years later he was elected chairman of the society of cattle breeders from the region of Maramures. Since then he dedicates himself to the protection of cattle breeder interests together with APA Transilvania.
His dream of arranging a modern cattle breeding company took shape in in 2007, when his project received support from the EU by means of the Sapard-programme (’Special action programme for agriculture and rural development’), an instrument which the EU applies to support candidate member states in Central and East Europe. This success gave an impulse to Franc to fight even harder for the interests of the cattle breeders in order to gain more success for the sector. This, amongst other things, led in 2007 to the foundation of the National Federation of Cattle breeders, where Claudiu Franc was elected vice-chairman.
APA Transilvania was supported by Agriterra and ZLTO in organising a training on the topics of lobby and protection of interests, and about the communal agricultural politics of the EU. This training took place in February of this year, and was organised by Frank van Oorschot of the ZLTO. During the training the member organisations of APA learned everything about lobby, EU policies, subsidy schemes, participation, and so on. This way they got to know that Romania does not have representatives in the European Economic Social Comittee (EESC) in Brussels, while the EESC has a bridging function between the European institutions and the middle social area and gives advice to the EU. Therefore the EESC is the obvious place for farmers to raise their voice.
The Federation of cattle breeders took the advice of Van Oorschot to heart and appointed Claudiu Franc representative in the Committee. He has already visited Brussels once (in april this year) to participate in conferences about the meat price of cattle. At the end of this year a new round of conferences with colleagues from other countries has been planned in Brussels. Franc’s contribution there is of major importance to APA Transilvania, their member organisations and the Romanian farmers.
The entry into the EU, however, did not automatically imply improvement of the situation of the Romanian farmers. More than ever farming organisations have to stand up for the interests of their members and raise their voice, both nationally and internationally.
A Romanian farmer who fights hard for this is Claudiu Franc. Claudiu Franc, a 46-year old veterinary surgeon, studied at the Agricultural University and worked in a state cattle breeding company with 7,000 heads of cattle (dairy cows and young cattle). After three years, at the end of 1989, he returned to his mountainous native region Maramures, known for its cattle breeding and fruit culture. Since 2004 he has been a member of the cattle breeding society there, and also of the local council. Two years later he was elected chairman of the society of cattle breeders from the region of Maramures. Since then he dedicates himself to the protection of cattle breeder interests together with APA Transilvania.
His dream of arranging a modern cattle breeding company took shape in in 2007, when his project received support from the EU by means of the Sapard-programme (’Special action programme for agriculture and rural development’), an instrument which the EU applies to support candidate member states in Central and East Europe. This success gave an impulse to Franc to fight even harder for the interests of the cattle breeders in order to gain more success for the sector. This, amongst other things, led in 2007 to the foundation of the National Federation of Cattle breeders, where Claudiu Franc was elected vice-chairman.
APA Transilvania was supported by Agriterra and ZLTO in organising a training on the topics of lobby and protection of interests, and about the communal agricultural politics of the EU. This training took place in February of this year, and was organised by Frank van Oorschot of the ZLTO. During the training the member organisations of APA learned everything about lobby, EU policies, subsidy schemes, participation, and so on. This way they got to know that Romania does not have representatives in the European Economic Social Comittee (EESC) in Brussels, while the EESC has a bridging function between the European institutions and the middle social area and gives advice to the EU. Therefore the EESC is the obvious place for farmers to raise their voice.
The Federation of cattle breeders took the advice of Van Oorschot to heart and appointed Claudiu Franc representative in the Committee. He has already visited Brussels once (in april this year) to participate in conferences about the meat price of cattle. At the end of this year a new round of conferences with colleagues from other countries has been planned in Brussels. Franc’s contribution there is of major importance to APA Transilvania, their member organisations and the Romanian farmers.
Wednesday, October 3, 2007
It starts with literacy
Féderation des Paysans du Fouta Djallon in Guinea has been supported since 2001 by UPA-DI. An evaluation in 2008 provides evidence of the increased capacity of farmer organisations, of changed agricultural practices, increased yields and better natural resource management. Working with organised farmers has contributed to a fast increasing outreach. Literacy and numeracy classes for members have positively contributed to their adaptation rates for new techniques. Market and climate volatility remain risk factors for farmers, despite important income and safety net improvements.
“Support was provided in the field of organisational strengthening of various levels of farmers groups and organisations.
- The evaluation has found that literacy unblocked farmers to capability to effectively apply the new agricultural techniques and increased their interest in more professional agriculture. 5.708 farmers have been trained in literacy of which 70% effectively managed to read and write after the course. Quantitative research showed that 84% of the members who took literacy courses now sow in lines, 78% respect better fertilizer use and 58% produce and use compost.
- The programme also supported farmers with introduction of new processing techniques. Important has been the drying techniques and equipment for onions of which 625 members of 43 groups have benefited.
- Also clearing and opening of new farm land has been important. In total, 76 ha have been cleared and are currently planted with rice, tomatoes, egg fruits etc.
- Environmental management has improved as 50% of the studied groups now have stone corridors in their fields, 100% of the groups use hedges, 20% of the households use wood saving stoves.
As a result, the crop yields have increased, although the results are troubled by the harsh climate. Potato yields increased from 17 tons/ha in 2003 to 23 tons/ha in 2005/2006 in the plains. Sales margins have more than doubled for potatoes at the riverside, but declined for potatoes in the plains, mainly due to high initial investment costs. The tradable volumes in onions increased by 30 to 40% in the studied groups and the total income from onions in these groups more than doubled as also the price per kg increased. The markets in Guinea are vulnerable to the extent that it is difficult to predict whether sustainable income increase will take place. An evaluation survey found that households borrow less from each other and spend more on food, housing, health care and medication, clothes, agricultural equipment and household utensils. The scale of the effects can be estimated from the total 382 groups involved and the number of members 2.841 that paid a membership fee.”
“Support was provided in the field of organisational strengthening of various levels of farmers groups and organisations.
- The evaluation has found that literacy unblocked farmers to capability to effectively apply the new agricultural techniques and increased their interest in more professional agriculture. 5.708 farmers have been trained in literacy of which 70% effectively managed to read and write after the course. Quantitative research showed that 84% of the members who took literacy courses now sow in lines, 78% respect better fertilizer use and 58% produce and use compost.
- The programme also supported farmers with introduction of new processing techniques. Important has been the drying techniques and equipment for onions of which 625 members of 43 groups have benefited.
- Also clearing and opening of new farm land has been important. In total, 76 ha have been cleared and are currently planted with rice, tomatoes, egg fruits etc.
- Environmental management has improved as 50% of the studied groups now have stone corridors in their fields, 100% of the groups use hedges, 20% of the households use wood saving stoves.
As a result, the crop yields have increased, although the results are troubled by the harsh climate. Potato yields increased from 17 tons/ha in 2003 to 23 tons/ha in 2005/2006 in the plains. Sales margins have more than doubled for potatoes at the riverside, but declined for potatoes in the plains, mainly due to high initial investment costs. The tradable volumes in onions increased by 30 to 40% in the studied groups and the total income from onions in these groups more than doubled as also the price per kg increased. The markets in Guinea are vulnerable to the extent that it is difficult to predict whether sustainable income increase will take place. An evaluation survey found that households borrow less from each other and spend more on food, housing, health care and medication, clothes, agricultural equipment and household utensils. The scale of the effects can be estimated from the total 382 groups involved and the number of members 2.841 that paid a membership fee.”
Tuesday, September 11, 2007
What was your situation several years ago?
Mr. Simon Asatryan is a farmer in Armenia. After the collapse of the former Soviet-Union in 1991, Mr. Simon and his family acquired one hectare of agricultural land in his village as part of the agrarian reform program. He was also able to buy an additional one hectare of agricultural land in 2002. At that time, Mr. Simon Asatryan was growing grapes and apricots. The famous Armenian apricots were mainly for export to Russia, whereas grapes were mainly sold in the local market.
How is your situation now? What has changed?
During the last six years, Mr. Simon Asatryan has been able to acquire 4 additional hectares of land. Currently, he is also renting 2 hectares of land, making the total area of land under cultivation 8 hectares, mainly with grapes and apricots. According to Mr. Simon Asatryan, there is a continuous need for expanding the farm land in order to survive as a farmer. But, in recent years land has become scarce in his village. A big agri-business firm has recently acquired a large piece of waste land to establish vineyards with French grapes. This could be a good opportunity for the farmers in this village as the agri-business firm will probably also establish a winery and additional infrastructure, giving alternative market outlets for the farmers. The recent conflict between Russia and Georgia has been worrisome in terms of export of apricots to Russia as trucks could not pass disputed territory. New routes through Turkey, Bulgaria and Ukraine were explored to reach the Moscow market. Fortunately, although using this longer alternative route, exporting was still profitable.
Which changes were most important/far reaching? Why?
How/why did these changes come about? (describe process and what caused these changes?)
Mr. Simon Asatryan has been a founding member of Aygegorts Agricultural Association in 2002. Since then, he has been actively engaged. He considers being member of this cooperative as crucial for his farm as alone he would not be able to solve many problems. For example, Mr. Simon Asatryan acquires agricultural inputs like fertilizer and fuel through his cooperative at a lower-than-market prices, often the advantage is more than 20%. At the same time, the cooperative guarantees good quality inputs at the right time! The cooperative also gives him access to training and consultancy services from FAA (Federation of Agricultural Associations), the national level federation of 17 agricultural association. Finally, the Federation is facilitating the exports to foreign markets, ensuring that he can sell his apricots at a good price!
How is your situation now? What has changed?
During the last six years, Mr. Simon Asatryan has been able to acquire 4 additional hectares of land. Currently, he is also renting 2 hectares of land, making the total area of land under cultivation 8 hectares, mainly with grapes and apricots. According to Mr. Simon Asatryan, there is a continuous need for expanding the farm land in order to survive as a farmer. But, in recent years land has become scarce in his village. A big agri-business firm has recently acquired a large piece of waste land to establish vineyards with French grapes. This could be a good opportunity for the farmers in this village as the agri-business firm will probably also establish a winery and additional infrastructure, giving alternative market outlets for the farmers. The recent conflict between Russia and Georgia has been worrisome in terms of export of apricots to Russia as trucks could not pass disputed territory. New routes through Turkey, Bulgaria and Ukraine were explored to reach the Moscow market. Fortunately, although using this longer alternative route, exporting was still profitable.
Which changes were most important/far reaching? Why?
How/why did these changes come about? (describe process and what caused these changes?)
Mr. Simon Asatryan has been a founding member of Aygegorts Agricultural Association in 2002. Since then, he has been actively engaged. He considers being member of this cooperative as crucial for his farm as alone he would not be able to solve many problems. For example, Mr. Simon Asatryan acquires agricultural inputs like fertilizer and fuel through his cooperative at a lower-than-market prices, often the advantage is more than 20%. At the same time, the cooperative guarantees good quality inputs at the right time! The cooperative also gives him access to training and consultancy services from FAA (Federation of Agricultural Associations), the national level federation of 17 agricultural association. Finally, the Federation is facilitating the exports to foreign markets, ensuring that he can sell his apricots at a good price!
Sunday, August 19, 2007
Timing and colour charts
The example of the support to a provincial farmers’ organisation in Vietnam (VFA Cantho) illustrates how capacity building of the farmers’ organisation, has improved the outreach towards minority groups and has contributed to a more demand driven approach of the extension services. The support has increased marketing, profitability and at the same time natural resource management of the involved farmers. Operating in Vietnam, of course one deals with an attribution problem, certainly the interventions are not solely responsible for the improvements. Also, the successes on local level have been difficult to institutionalise on higher levels of VFA.
“VFA Cantho (Vietnam Farmers Association) has received support for many years with a focus on improving its service capacity for members to increase crop yields, crop diversification and better natural resource management. Important effects have been found in an external quantitative survey. The average rice yield among project members in 2007 was 1.22 times higher than in 2003 (from 5.8 tons/ha to 7 tons/ha in 2007). The cost of production reduced by 19% in 5 years time in two project areas and 25% in two other project areas. The application of in line seeding, ‘Leaf Colour Chart’ for nitrogen management and Integrated Pest Management (‘3 reductions, 3 gains’) contributed to lower cost because of reduced use of seed, pesticides and nitrogen fertilizer. Outreach was better than estimated: 59% of the poor in these communities were included (against 50% as planned). Group formation at hamlet level contributed to the wider outreach amongst minority groups. In VFA Cantho, Vietnam, the farm sales prices increased by 21% for agricultural products and with 16% for non-agricultural products. This was thanks to higher quality products, better organised transportation and better timing of sales. A generally higher market demand, which was not controlled by the project, contributed to the results. The average income of the target group increased from 185,263 VND/person/month in 2003 to 311,315 VND/person/month in 2007 (times 1.7) The study showed that this improved income resulted in improved well-being and increased investments. The successes on local level have been difficult to institutionalise on higher levels of VFA.”
“VFA Cantho (Vietnam Farmers Association) has received support for many years with a focus on improving its service capacity for members to increase crop yields, crop diversification and better natural resource management. Important effects have been found in an external quantitative survey. The average rice yield among project members in 2007 was 1.22 times higher than in 2003 (from 5.8 tons/ha to 7 tons/ha in 2007). The cost of production reduced by 19% in 5 years time in two project areas and 25% in two other project areas. The application of in line seeding, ‘Leaf Colour Chart’ for nitrogen management and Integrated Pest Management (‘3 reductions, 3 gains’) contributed to lower cost because of reduced use of seed, pesticides and nitrogen fertilizer. Outreach was better than estimated: 59% of the poor in these communities were included (against 50% as planned). Group formation at hamlet level contributed to the wider outreach amongst minority groups. In VFA Cantho, Vietnam, the farm sales prices increased by 21% for agricultural products and with 16% for non-agricultural products. This was thanks to higher quality products, better organised transportation and better timing of sales. A generally higher market demand, which was not controlled by the project, contributed to the results. The average income of the target group increased from 185,263 VND/person/month in 2003 to 311,315 VND/person/month in 2007 (times 1.7) The study showed that this improved income resulted in improved well-being and increased investments. The successes on local level have been difficult to institutionalise on higher levels of VFA.”
Wednesday, August 8, 2007
Coops cope with external circumstances
The support by SCC to cooperatives in Kenya, illustrates the potential of small cooperatives to contribute to input supply, market linkages and especially improved market payments for small scale farmers, influencing positively their incomes. The example also illustrates how working with cooperatives has advantages for farmers to cope more quickly and in a sustainable way with difficult external circumstances.
“The project has supported 43 primary agricultural cooperatives, 15 small scale farmers organisation and 15 youth groups between 2006-2009. About 6.300 direct beneficiaries are participating via the cooperatives, of which about 43% women. The support of SCC contributes to organisational strengthening of the cooperatives, and to more and better service delivery to the members by the cooperatives. More specifically, a participatory monitoring and evaluation system was strengthened and the professional capacity of cooperatives for democratic principles and for service delivery (market related) to members was built. Also measures to strengthen the accountability towards members have been taken. For the members of the cooperatives, this resulted in improved and more diversified services to members and in better payments for their products by the cooperatives. For example, the price paid for milk for members of the Kyumbi dairy association increased with 30%. This took place thanks to higher market prices generally, but also thanks to the fact that the cooperative started to produce yoghurt and linked the members to lucrative markets. Not only prices for farmers increased, but their profitability was further increased by collective supply of inputs for farmers, combined with raising awareness on environmental issues. This type of progress has been translated in an income increase for the members of 46%, despite drought and political violence in Kenya. Still, the example of SCC in Kenya illustrates that working with farmer organisations has the advantage of being close to the analysis of effects by farmers and of working close to farmers to introduce new strategies. Climate changes have quite suddenly introduced longer drought spells in Kenya. Apart from directly introducing drought resistant crops and testing drip irrigation, the project is also able to link the cooperatives directly better to surrounding research institutions in order to search continuously new solutions with them.”
“The project has supported 43 primary agricultural cooperatives, 15 small scale farmers organisation and 15 youth groups between 2006-2009. About 6.300 direct beneficiaries are participating via the cooperatives, of which about 43% women. The support of SCC contributes to organisational strengthening of the cooperatives, and to more and better service delivery to the members by the cooperatives. More specifically, a participatory monitoring and evaluation system was strengthened and the professional capacity of cooperatives for democratic principles and for service delivery (market related) to members was built. Also measures to strengthen the accountability towards members have been taken. For the members of the cooperatives, this resulted in improved and more diversified services to members and in better payments for their products by the cooperatives. For example, the price paid for milk for members of the Kyumbi dairy association increased with 30%. This took place thanks to higher market prices generally, but also thanks to the fact that the cooperative started to produce yoghurt and linked the members to lucrative markets. Not only prices for farmers increased, but their profitability was further increased by collective supply of inputs for farmers, combined with raising awareness on environmental issues. This type of progress has been translated in an income increase for the members of 46%, despite drought and political violence in Kenya. Still, the example of SCC in Kenya illustrates that working with farmer organisations has the advantage of being close to the analysis of effects by farmers and of working close to farmers to introduce new strategies. Climate changes have quite suddenly introduced longer drought spells in Kenya. Apart from directly introducing drought resistant crops and testing drip irrigation, the project is also able to link the cooperatives directly better to surrounding research institutions in order to search continuously new solutions with them.”
Thursday, July 19, 2007
Power to the women
SCC has supported regional training on gender mainstreaming training for farmer organisations in Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda and Uganda. Through institutional changes in the farmers’ organisations, the members’ household attitudes regarding gender were eventually positively affected. The experience confirmed that sharing experience within a farmers’ organisation plays a key role in motivating leaders and members for mainstreaming gender. To work with a network of organisations gives additional advantages in that respect. Strong commitment of the board is necessary to really achieve results.
“The results were in the field of increased gender balance and more gender sensitive staff in the POs and existence of institutional systems, facilities and services responsive to gender specific needs. The capacity of staff and leaders to mainstream gender was enhanced through gender trainings. Four organisations embarked on developing gender policies and are more committed to addressing gender issues in their organisation. Work plans to make the policies operational are in place and implemented. Awareness and sensitization on gender issues has been translated on local level and demonstrate results. Women take up more leaderships roles; in Uganda in Nyakantonzi Farmers Union, there is now at least one woman on the committee of every primary cooperative society. In Tanzania, (Arumeru, Karatu, Makambako districts) more women are participating in development activities. Finally, specific initiatives (models) were supported to reduce workload of women at the household level. 30 women of Muguna Farmers Cooperative Society for example were able to purchase water tanks, bicycles and ox carts to bring their produce to the market.”
“The results were in the field of increased gender balance and more gender sensitive staff in the POs and existence of institutional systems, facilities and services responsive to gender specific needs. The capacity of staff and leaders to mainstream gender was enhanced through gender trainings. Four organisations embarked on developing gender policies and are more committed to addressing gender issues in their organisation. Work plans to make the policies operational are in place and implemented. Awareness and sensitization on gender issues has been translated on local level and demonstrate results. Women take up more leaderships roles; in Uganda in Nyakantonzi Farmers Union, there is now at least one woman on the committee of every primary cooperative society. In Tanzania, (Arumeru, Karatu, Makambako districts) more women are participating in development activities. Finally, specific initiatives (models) were supported to reduce workload of women at the household level. 30 women of Muguna Farmers Cooperative Society for example were able to purchase water tanks, bicycles and ox carts to bring their produce to the market.”
Saturday, June 23, 2007
Monday, April 30, 2007
Farmers union starts Internet booth
There are exciting plans for the KENFAP office in Nyeri. The idea is to have an internet café in the KENFAP office for farmers to use. The room is now being prepared for more computers to be installed but already the KENFAP office is offering training for computers. This Story based on interviews with Grace Ngambi, Mary Muthami; David Kammo and Lucy Mwangi by Anne Dennig in August 2006 KENFAP’s office in Nyeri
Lucy Mwangi. is giving training to farmers in the use of Word, Excel, PowerPoint and of the Internet for Email and to access useful websites. The courses last a week and runs for a couple of hours each day. At the end of the course the participants receive a certificate. The office charges members 500 Ksh and non-members 600 Ksh for the course. The Kaholifa Youth Group has already had some training on using Email and now has its own Email address!
Running an Info Office as a Business.
The KENFAP office is run as a business; charging for photocopying, phone charging, typing, library and Internet services. KENFAP members can borrow books from the library without payment and are charged at a lower rate than non-members for photocopying etc. Now KENFAP head office in is assisting us with the purchase of computers and pays the salaries of the office staff. But KENFAP wants all their offices to be autonomous; they want regional offices to be able to pay for their own expenses.
The income streams we are developing are:
• Exhibitions for farmers to meet buyers
• Extension and specialist consultation
• Internet and office services
• Training courses
Improving Marketing
After the LLL workshop in Kakamega in August 2006, we have plans to continue to improve marketing. The Nyeri Branch intends to organize marketing groups for particular crops and to act as a broker to negotiate a price for a farmer group. Although KENFAP has been working towards this in the last two years we have not yet broken through. There is demand for Sunflowers and farmers want KENFAP to sign a contract for the crop production with one of the Sunflower companies (BIDCO or Elianto) so that the farmers have security (the contract must include all the details of who pays for training etc). If this is done there will then be a need for training and the provision of seeds and fertilizers. At the moment we offer marketing courses, these are run by the head office and organized for producers and buyers to meet and discuss. We would like the want the sunflower companies to pay the farmers’ groups directly (one account per farmers alliance) and then pay KENFAP commission as brokers. KENFAP must educate the farmers and play a role of the broker; the advantage is that the farmers already trust KENFAP. What is imperative is the proper analysis of gross margin; to find the real cost of production. Through exhibitions KENFAP have shown that we can coordinate the farmers- the companies should pay for organizing these exhibitions.
Lucy Mwangi. is giving training to farmers in the use of Word, Excel, PowerPoint and of the Internet for Email and to access useful websites. The courses last a week and runs for a couple of hours each day. At the end of the course the participants receive a certificate. The office charges members 500 Ksh and non-members 600 Ksh for the course. The Kaholifa Youth Group has already had some training on using Email and now has its own Email address!
Running an Info Office as a Business.
The KENFAP office is run as a business; charging for photocopying, phone charging, typing, library and Internet services. KENFAP members can borrow books from the library without payment and are charged at a lower rate than non-members for photocopying etc. Now KENFAP head office in is assisting us with the purchase of computers and pays the salaries of the office staff. But KENFAP wants all their offices to be autonomous; they want regional offices to be able to pay for their own expenses.
The income streams we are developing are:
• Exhibitions for farmers to meet buyers
• Extension and specialist consultation
• Internet and office services
• Training courses
Improving Marketing
After the LLL workshop in Kakamega in August 2006, we have plans to continue to improve marketing. The Nyeri Branch intends to organize marketing groups for particular crops and to act as a broker to negotiate a price for a farmer group. Although KENFAP has been working towards this in the last two years we have not yet broken through. There is demand for Sunflowers and farmers want KENFAP to sign a contract for the crop production with one of the Sunflower companies (BIDCO or Elianto) so that the farmers have security (the contract must include all the details of who pays for training etc). If this is done there will then be a need for training and the provision of seeds and fertilizers. At the moment we offer marketing courses, these are run by the head office and organized for producers and buyers to meet and discuss. We would like the want the sunflower companies to pay the farmers’ groups directly (one account per farmers alliance) and then pay KENFAP commission as brokers. KENFAP must educate the farmers and play a role of the broker; the advantage is that the farmers already trust KENFAP. What is imperative is the proper analysis of gross margin; to find the real cost of production. Through exhibitions KENFAP have shown that we can coordinate the farmers- the companies should pay for organizing these exhibitions.
Sunday, April 15, 2007
Comment to the World Bank Report 2008 on Agriculture
1. Key messages in World Development Report
1.1 In the aftermath of economic liberation new opportunities emerge for an agriculture-for-development agenda. Through enhanced coordination, reforming the international institutions for agriculture, more financial commitments, progress in setting rules and standards, enhanced leadership and capacity in developing countries, and analysis and advocacy for global action for the benefit of third world interests, the agriculture-for-development agenda can be successful.
1.2 In the specific chapter on governance the perspective of the appropriate selection of policies and their effective implementation is set and the report argues that this will reinforce the political commitment to use agriculture for development.
2. Underlying assumptions
2.1 Stabilization and liberation policies have set the correct macro-development parameters. Global shifts in production and trade, technological and institutional innovation, decentralization and democratization of countries and the proliferation of civil society organizations are the elements that set a new stage. Capturing the benefits of this new situation requires a new engineering of state, market and civil society operations from local up to global level.
2.2 This analysis is congruent with the central message issued in the ‘From Plunder to Economic Democratization’ International Seminar celebrated in Arnhem, Netherlands, 2003. It reads: “...an economic environment with an overvalued exchange rate has crushing effects on production; and such an environment was the prevailing case in the 1980s…Policy reforms after 1980s have dramatically changed the picture. ... In general, no anti-rural bias is found” and “The new economic paradigm beyond interventionism and liberalization is economic democratization. It is based on political democracy, economic freedom and unbiased polices….The free association of workers and farmers allows for the institutionalization of social and economic negotiations on economic policy.” (AgriCord, 2003).
2.3 In the words of the World Development Report: “Responses to the economic crises of the 1980s helped put the macro fundamentals for growth solidly in place. Few countries now have high rates of inflation or large imbalances in their real exchange rates. Progress has been made worldwide with democracy, decentralization, and political stability, including reduced civil strife in Africa. And there have been major gains in the empowerment of civil society, particularly through the proliferation of producer organizations.” (WDR overview.45)
2.4 For governance the stage is set by the current emphasis on democratization, public sector management reforms, controlling corruption and decentralization.
3. The strengths
3.1 The strength is a well argued historical and geographical argumentation which allows readers to follow the argumentation.
3.2 Particularly, and from our perspective very appropriately, the report captures a new reality as far as farmers’ organizations are concerned. In the report there are approximately 200 references to farmers’, producers’ and rural women’s organizations and cooperatives. There is a clear understanding of the importance, functionality and possibilities of these organizations and the variety of organizational forms from local up to global level.
3.3 At the same time, the report underscores the difficulties and weaknesses of farmers’ organizations. In this respect it is useful to emphasize the gap between outsiders’ expectations and farmers’ organizations abilities to fulfil the range of roles and functions that are required from them for implementing the agriculture-for-development agenda. Hence, the need for continued strengthening of their role vis-à-vis their members, the market, state and other social actors. A need that is acknowledged in the report.
3.4 The report rightly stresses the need for and difficulties of land reform.
3.5 The report elaborates on the different pathways out of poverty. Figure 6 (WDR, overview.49) shows that these do not solely depend on the development of agriculture.
3.6 Paragraph 11.21 elaborates correctly on the advantages of ICT in policymaking.
4. The weaknesses
4.1 The International Federation of Agricultural Producers IFAP in its comments on the Draft Report pointed out the multiply opportunities in the text to refer even more to farmers organizations than the report already does; IFAP highlights the need for further strengthening. This is correct and should be taken into consideration in the final version.
4.2 Yet even by doing so, the report will, regretfully, not capture the full developmental implication of the social organization of farmers. The free and open association of producers is the basis of democracy in agrarian countries and therefore as such an engine for development.
4.3 In the report, and especially in the governance chapter, however, producer organizations are seen as just an extra element that is instrumental because it “can also overcome market failures while avoiding government failures. Collective action through producer organizations can enable economies of scale in input supply, extension and marketing, and managing common property resources, such as irrigation systems. Collective action can also increase farmers’ voice in public decision-making and hold service providers accountable” (WDR, 11.14). In this way they put on the same level as NGOs, notwithstanding the obvious difference with the latter for having a constituency to which to be accountable.
4.4 Although the functional analysis in WDR 11.14 is very accurate at a factual level, it misses the development impact that is likely to occur as a consequence of the sole fact that 1.3 billion people get increasingly organized, in particular the farmer entrepreneurs among them, independently of how small their plot may be. The report does not grasp the reality that continued democratisation follows from the proliferation of farmer organizations and their strengthening.
4.5 The report also misses the point that the role and function of farmers’ organizations in policy preparation is something that has to be facilitated. The opinion of the World Bank for participatory policy making is a strong signal, but it is not enough to make it. In the words of the report “It is the citizens of a country and their leaders who reform governance” (par. 11.6). It is paramount to directly support farmers, citizens of agrarian countries, in order to strengthen their organizations so that they can spur the reforms.
4.6 The authors seem to ignore the accumulated experiences - and the contributions to development theory emerging from these experiences - that have been learned in the circles of IFAP. Although the Federation itself (box 6.9) and three agri-agencies related to it (6.85 footnote 101) are mentioned, the report does not appear to have reviewed their experiences. In the report, only the CNCR (Senegal) and FENOCIN (Ecuador) are mentioned as national farmers’ organizations, whereas national bodies of family farmers are the base of IFAP and the partners for AgriCord. Over a hundred of them are working with AgriCord and its agri-agencies with a total member base of 25 million farmers, even when VNFU (Vietnam) and CFA (India) are not counted. These two claim another 130 million members.
4.7 There is more exposure in the report for the regional (supranational) bodies, like ROPPA and EAFF. These are receiving increasing attention since IFAD acknowledged the importance of farmers’ organizations. However, reference to more national federations and unions of farmers in many developing countries could substantially improve the argument. The increase in provincial and local associations, as reported for Burkina Faso and Ecuador and their federation into national bodies, is a far more general trend.
4.8 Communication and banking technology will shortly enable direct support to farmers’ organizations on all levels, improving at the same time the functional and service relations among the different organizational layers.
4.9 The report could have differentiated even more between farmer employment creators and that part of the rural population that relies now on agriculture because of the lack of better employment opportunities; i.e. employment takers that will benefit from new industries and services that will emerge in a market-oriented agriculture. The employment-creating farmers do not confine themselves to farming, but establish ventures for processing, trade and services like banking, insurance, training or information gathering. Having said this, the report should have stressed less the differences between large and small landholders and focussed more on ‘concertation’ within the farming sector and with other sectors of society.
4.10 Whereas Chapter 10 (par. 10.80) announces that capacity building is a central element to assure governance and private capacities for agricultural development, which will be elaborated in Chapter 11, this is not really done on that point. There are some new competences mentioned for the public sector (p.11.6), but reference to wider capacity building efforts for all key actors, including producers, is not elaborated upon.
4.11 The part on decentralisation (par 11.14 - 11.19) mainly illustrates that decentralisation processes have taken place in the majority of countries under review and the Chapter provides examples. It should go further and elaborate on the need for stronger feedback mechanism from local to national (and global, as mentioned in the title of the Chapter) levels, on results of policies and the inclusion of PO needs and priorities into national policies and priorities.
In what way do these arguments alter the positions of the report?
The most important change would be, the following:
· Emphasize the establishment of the free association of farmers for production, processing and servicing of agriculture as one of the pillars of an agenda of agriculture-for-development next to the five mentioned in 10.5.
Additionally, other aspects should be added or modified, including the following:
· Make positive reference to not only the proliferation of farmers’ organizations, but also to the strengthening of national federations and to their efforts to capitalize on new capacities (6.77).
· Give more examples of national farmers’ unions as an important level of organization (between 6.77 and 6.78).
· Highlight even more the need for capacity building efforts on all levels where farmers associate, i.e. capacity to organize, produce, trade, process and service agriculture
· Project an image of what a modern farmer association that fosters development looks like, along the lines of the Farmers Fighting Poverty brochure distributed before the donor seminar with that name in 2006. Please note that not every farmers’ association fosters development (additional box, see below)
· Refer to the beneficial relation between new products that private business makes available for the bottom of the pyramid and the diffusion of technology through farmers’ associations, that in effect operate as the social networks mentioned by the report (cf 3.29)
· Describe more extensively the emerging development cooperation among farmers’ organizations of OECD countries with those of developing countries[1]
Literature or research
AgriCord
2003 Reader International Seminar: From Plunder to Economic Democratisation. A debate of farm leaders with policy makers, development officers and scholars. AgriCord, Arnhem.
Gouët, C. and Leeuwis, C.
2004a Towards Capitalizing on Capacities. The evaluation of Agriterra’s programme 2001-2003. (available from www.agro-info.net)
2004b Capacity Building of Rural People’s Organisations at the local, national and international spheres. Summary of the evaluation of Agriterra’s programme on international cooperation between rural people’s organisations (2001-2003). Wageningen University, report document.
Rondot, Pierre & Marie-Hélène Collion
1999 Agricultural Producer Organizations, their contribution to rural capacity building and poverty reduction
Mercoiret Marie-Rose, Pesche Denis, Bosc Pierre Marie
2006 Rural Producer Organizations (RPOs) for pro-poor sustainable development. Report of the Paris workshop (30-31 October 2006). Ministère des Affaires Etrangères, IFAD, Ministère de l’agriculture et de la Pèche, World Bank, 2006
Cases worth highlighting
KENFAP (Kenya) – An expanding modern farmers’ union that has created a limited company to attend to the business initiatives of its members and promote entrepreneurship
CFA (India) - The establishment of the Confederation of Indian Farmers Associations, an initiative heavily promoted by Federation of Farmers Associations of Andhra Pradesh. This institutionalized farmer alliance groups together farmers’ organizations with a total membership of 120 million Indian farmers.
JNC (Peru) – Effective organization for advocacy on behalf of the producers of an important export crop
VNFU (Vietnam) – Case of a nationwide, top-down controlled farmers’ union that efficiently builds new services and tries to catch up with globalization following national policies. The lack of two-way communication in VNFU is due to the overall political setting in the country. A political machine of this kind can eventually be turned into a powerful instrument for services to farmers, access to agricultural inputs and credit covering all remote corners of the country.
Insurance – farmer-led initiatives in Nepal, Philippines and Cambodia for life insurance
Tourism – farmer-led investments in routes and lodges administered by farmer communities and serviced through the union
FinBase – Participatory multi-stakeholder processes to improve the financial management of farmers’ organizations and make them ready to SomPlan (see World Bank, 1999)
Profiling – The project started in 1999 to elaborate a methodology and practice to regularly gather systematic data on producer organizations in order to follow their development and strengthening. A first comprehensive overview of results is forthcoming in June 2007.
PIPGA – A support methodology developed for national farmers’ organizations to systematically consult their constituency, collect and summarize their points of view, have key issues researched by renowned scholars and advocated in the public debate with government and other social actors. See experiences of UNAG, Nicaragua; CNFR, Uruguay; FAA, Argentina
Other specific recommendations for improving the WDR
· 3.29 reads: “Farmers’ decisions are influenced by the experiences of farmers in their social networks, which can help reduce asymmetric information regarding the new technology.” It should add: Hence, the importance of the organization of farmers into associations and their horizontal and vertical integration into unions and federations. These organizations form the natural environment for spreading the news about new technologies and the success of colleague farmers in applying them.
· In 6.84 reference should be made to the Participatory Policy Generating Programme PIPGA that has supported member consultations of national farmers’ organizations in Latin America, linkages with institutes that can research positions taken by members, and advocacy training.
· Footnote 101 should be incorporated into the text of 6.85: Producer organizations in industrialized countries provide support to organizations in developing countries through their agri-agencies, like AGRITERRA for the Dutch cooperatives, rural women and farmers’ unions, or AFDI and FERT in France. Several European agri-agencies have allied themselves with the Canadian UPA-DI and the Japanese IDACA in AgriCord and signed a cooperation agreement with the International Federation of Agricultural Producers IFAP. The Dutch Government pledged already more than Euro 50 million to this type of direct support from farmer-to-farmer.
· The preceding message could be repeated in a new paragraph 11.74 by saying: Farmer-led, agricultural business or cooperative-led efforts for development cooperation emerged in France (FERT, AFDI), Sweden (SCC) and were copied more recently in the Netherlands (Agriterra). Their farmer-to-farmer cooperation combines direct contact among colleagues addressing productive, management, organizational and marketing issues for primary production but also for services and processing of agricultural produce. The agri-agencies strengthen the advocacy capacities of national farmers’ organizations, improve financial management and help to establish new businesses. Their performance is monitored through an extensive profiling system, which is producing a wealth of information and data on farmers’ organizations. Today the agri-agencies allied in AgriCord have 141 staff in OECD countries and over 215 in developing countries, and have an annual budget of Euro 57 million with operations in 60 countries.
· In Table 11.2 the new emerging farmer-led structure for development cooperation should have been included as AgriCord with a K for agricultural knowledge and an F for Finance/aid for agriculture.
· Include a text box on modern farmers’ organizations, like the following one:
Box 11.xx. Modern farmers’ organizations and co-operatives
Modern national farmers’ organizations are membership organisations, or federations of membership organizations. The members elect their leaders and are accountable to their constituency. Their constituency develops rural and agricultural activities with a certain importance within the country. They have a clear view on poverty reduction and believe that they themselves, as well as their members, can play a role in poverty reduction. Modern organizations are open to dialogue and collaboration. This shows also from their membership of regional and international federations, i.e. organizations that are already familiar with a framework for international cooperation.
In summary they have, at least, potentially, the following characteristics:
· Their constituency should represent a significant share of the rural population in their country.
· They should have the ambition to fulfil a specific role in development.
· They should work towards a society providing full political and economic participation of the rural population.
· They should always look for possibilities of constructive dialogue with other stakeholders (which does not preclude the option of strong protest when this is required).
· They should be open to exchange and dialogue with organizations from other countries.
· They should hold no ties with governments or political parties
· They should have democratic leadership,
In the case of collaboration with (federations of) cooperative societies, some additional criteria should be applied, like being companies that assign rights as well as duties to the membership status and that are open to cooperation and change. Mutual assistance should always be at the centre, combined with a business-like management and the ambition to achieve a positive result. The members should be the owners, having the final word in decisions regarding policy and the distribution of economic benefits.
Source: Farmers Fighting Poverty, brochure International Seminar 2006
Arnhem, April 12, 2007Dr. Kees Blokland (Agriterra) & Dr. Jan Brouwers (Wageningen International)
[1] Such relations with OECD country FO’s, with private sector, with relevant research and training centres worldwide are promoted within IFAP, through AgriCord. In the Netherlands, the Agri-ProFocus network.
1.1 In the aftermath of economic liberation new opportunities emerge for an agriculture-for-development agenda. Through enhanced coordination, reforming the international institutions for agriculture, more financial commitments, progress in setting rules and standards, enhanced leadership and capacity in developing countries, and analysis and advocacy for global action for the benefit of third world interests, the agriculture-for-development agenda can be successful.
1.2 In the specific chapter on governance the perspective of the appropriate selection of policies and their effective implementation is set and the report argues that this will reinforce the political commitment to use agriculture for development.
2. Underlying assumptions
2.1 Stabilization and liberation policies have set the correct macro-development parameters. Global shifts in production and trade, technological and institutional innovation, decentralization and democratization of countries and the proliferation of civil society organizations are the elements that set a new stage. Capturing the benefits of this new situation requires a new engineering of state, market and civil society operations from local up to global level.
2.2 This analysis is congruent with the central message issued in the ‘From Plunder to Economic Democratization’ International Seminar celebrated in Arnhem, Netherlands, 2003. It reads: “...an economic environment with an overvalued exchange rate has crushing effects on production; and such an environment was the prevailing case in the 1980s…Policy reforms after 1980s have dramatically changed the picture. ... In general, no anti-rural bias is found” and “The new economic paradigm beyond interventionism and liberalization is economic democratization. It is based on political democracy, economic freedom and unbiased polices….The free association of workers and farmers allows for the institutionalization of social and economic negotiations on economic policy.” (AgriCord, 2003).
2.3 In the words of the World Development Report: “Responses to the economic crises of the 1980s helped put the macro fundamentals for growth solidly in place. Few countries now have high rates of inflation or large imbalances in their real exchange rates. Progress has been made worldwide with democracy, decentralization, and political stability, including reduced civil strife in Africa. And there have been major gains in the empowerment of civil society, particularly through the proliferation of producer organizations.” (WDR overview.45)
2.4 For governance the stage is set by the current emphasis on democratization, public sector management reforms, controlling corruption and decentralization.
3. The strengths
3.1 The strength is a well argued historical and geographical argumentation which allows readers to follow the argumentation.
3.2 Particularly, and from our perspective very appropriately, the report captures a new reality as far as farmers’ organizations are concerned. In the report there are approximately 200 references to farmers’, producers’ and rural women’s organizations and cooperatives. There is a clear understanding of the importance, functionality and possibilities of these organizations and the variety of organizational forms from local up to global level.
3.3 At the same time, the report underscores the difficulties and weaknesses of farmers’ organizations. In this respect it is useful to emphasize the gap between outsiders’ expectations and farmers’ organizations abilities to fulfil the range of roles and functions that are required from them for implementing the agriculture-for-development agenda. Hence, the need for continued strengthening of their role vis-à-vis their members, the market, state and other social actors. A need that is acknowledged in the report.
3.4 The report rightly stresses the need for and difficulties of land reform.
3.5 The report elaborates on the different pathways out of poverty. Figure 6 (WDR, overview.49) shows that these do not solely depend on the development of agriculture.
3.6 Paragraph 11.21 elaborates correctly on the advantages of ICT in policymaking.
4. The weaknesses
4.1 The International Federation of Agricultural Producers IFAP in its comments on the Draft Report pointed out the multiply opportunities in the text to refer even more to farmers organizations than the report already does; IFAP highlights the need for further strengthening. This is correct and should be taken into consideration in the final version.
4.2 Yet even by doing so, the report will, regretfully, not capture the full developmental implication of the social organization of farmers. The free and open association of producers is the basis of democracy in agrarian countries and therefore as such an engine for development.
4.3 In the report, and especially in the governance chapter, however, producer organizations are seen as just an extra element that is instrumental because it “can also overcome market failures while avoiding government failures. Collective action through producer organizations can enable economies of scale in input supply, extension and marketing, and managing common property resources, such as irrigation systems. Collective action can also increase farmers’ voice in public decision-making and hold service providers accountable” (WDR, 11.14). In this way they put on the same level as NGOs, notwithstanding the obvious difference with the latter for having a constituency to which to be accountable.
4.4 Although the functional analysis in WDR 11.14 is very accurate at a factual level, it misses the development impact that is likely to occur as a consequence of the sole fact that 1.3 billion people get increasingly organized, in particular the farmer entrepreneurs among them, independently of how small their plot may be. The report does not grasp the reality that continued democratisation follows from the proliferation of farmer organizations and their strengthening.
4.5 The report also misses the point that the role and function of farmers’ organizations in policy preparation is something that has to be facilitated. The opinion of the World Bank for participatory policy making is a strong signal, but it is not enough to make it. In the words of the report “It is the citizens of a country and their leaders who reform governance” (par. 11.6). It is paramount to directly support farmers, citizens of agrarian countries, in order to strengthen their organizations so that they can spur the reforms.
4.6 The authors seem to ignore the accumulated experiences - and the contributions to development theory emerging from these experiences - that have been learned in the circles of IFAP. Although the Federation itself (box 6.9) and three agri-agencies related to it (6.85 footnote 101) are mentioned, the report does not appear to have reviewed their experiences. In the report, only the CNCR (Senegal) and FENOCIN (Ecuador) are mentioned as national farmers’ organizations, whereas national bodies of family farmers are the base of IFAP and the partners for AgriCord. Over a hundred of them are working with AgriCord and its agri-agencies with a total member base of 25 million farmers, even when VNFU (Vietnam) and CFA (India) are not counted. These two claim another 130 million members.
4.7 There is more exposure in the report for the regional (supranational) bodies, like ROPPA and EAFF. These are receiving increasing attention since IFAD acknowledged the importance of farmers’ organizations. However, reference to more national federations and unions of farmers in many developing countries could substantially improve the argument. The increase in provincial and local associations, as reported for Burkina Faso and Ecuador and their federation into national bodies, is a far more general trend.
4.8 Communication and banking technology will shortly enable direct support to farmers’ organizations on all levels, improving at the same time the functional and service relations among the different organizational layers.
4.9 The report could have differentiated even more between farmer employment creators and that part of the rural population that relies now on agriculture because of the lack of better employment opportunities; i.e. employment takers that will benefit from new industries and services that will emerge in a market-oriented agriculture. The employment-creating farmers do not confine themselves to farming, but establish ventures for processing, trade and services like banking, insurance, training or information gathering. Having said this, the report should have stressed less the differences between large and small landholders and focussed more on ‘concertation’ within the farming sector and with other sectors of society.
4.10 Whereas Chapter 10 (par. 10.80) announces that capacity building is a central element to assure governance and private capacities for agricultural development, which will be elaborated in Chapter 11, this is not really done on that point. There are some new competences mentioned for the public sector (p.11.6), but reference to wider capacity building efforts for all key actors, including producers, is not elaborated upon.
4.11 The part on decentralisation (par 11.14 - 11.19) mainly illustrates that decentralisation processes have taken place in the majority of countries under review and the Chapter provides examples. It should go further and elaborate on the need for stronger feedback mechanism from local to national (and global, as mentioned in the title of the Chapter) levels, on results of policies and the inclusion of PO needs and priorities into national policies and priorities.
In what way do these arguments alter the positions of the report?
The most important change would be, the following:
· Emphasize the establishment of the free association of farmers for production, processing and servicing of agriculture as one of the pillars of an agenda of agriculture-for-development next to the five mentioned in 10.5.
Additionally, other aspects should be added or modified, including the following:
· Make positive reference to not only the proliferation of farmers’ organizations, but also to the strengthening of national federations and to their efforts to capitalize on new capacities (6.77).
· Give more examples of national farmers’ unions as an important level of organization (between 6.77 and 6.78).
· Highlight even more the need for capacity building efforts on all levels where farmers associate, i.e. capacity to organize, produce, trade, process and service agriculture
· Project an image of what a modern farmer association that fosters development looks like, along the lines of the Farmers Fighting Poverty brochure distributed before the donor seminar with that name in 2006. Please note that not every farmers’ association fosters development (additional box, see below)
· Refer to the beneficial relation between new products that private business makes available for the bottom of the pyramid and the diffusion of technology through farmers’ associations, that in effect operate as the social networks mentioned by the report (cf 3.29)
· Describe more extensively the emerging development cooperation among farmers’ organizations of OECD countries with those of developing countries[1]
Literature or research
AgriCord
2003 Reader International Seminar: From Plunder to Economic Democratisation. A debate of farm leaders with policy makers, development officers and scholars. AgriCord, Arnhem.
Gouët, C. and Leeuwis, C.
2004a Towards Capitalizing on Capacities. The evaluation of Agriterra’s programme 2001-2003. (available from www.agro-info.net)
2004b Capacity Building of Rural People’s Organisations at the local, national and international spheres. Summary of the evaluation of Agriterra’s programme on international cooperation between rural people’s organisations (2001-2003). Wageningen University, report document.
Rondot, Pierre & Marie-Hélène Collion
1999 Agricultural Producer Organizations, their contribution to rural capacity building and poverty reduction
Mercoiret Marie-Rose, Pesche Denis, Bosc Pierre Marie
2006 Rural Producer Organizations (RPOs) for pro-poor sustainable development. Report of the Paris workshop (30-31 October 2006). Ministère des Affaires Etrangères, IFAD, Ministère de l’agriculture et de la Pèche, World Bank, 2006
Cases worth highlighting
KENFAP (Kenya) – An expanding modern farmers’ union that has created a limited company to attend to the business initiatives of its members and promote entrepreneurship
CFA (India) - The establishment of the Confederation of Indian Farmers Associations, an initiative heavily promoted by Federation of Farmers Associations of Andhra Pradesh. This institutionalized farmer alliance groups together farmers’ organizations with a total membership of 120 million Indian farmers.
JNC (Peru) – Effective organization for advocacy on behalf of the producers of an important export crop
VNFU (Vietnam) – Case of a nationwide, top-down controlled farmers’ union that efficiently builds new services and tries to catch up with globalization following national policies. The lack of two-way communication in VNFU is due to the overall political setting in the country. A political machine of this kind can eventually be turned into a powerful instrument for services to farmers, access to agricultural inputs and credit covering all remote corners of the country.
Insurance – farmer-led initiatives in Nepal, Philippines and Cambodia for life insurance
Tourism – farmer-led investments in routes and lodges administered by farmer communities and serviced through the union
FinBase – Participatory multi-stakeholder processes to improve the financial management of farmers’ organizations and make them ready to SomPlan (see World Bank, 1999)
Profiling – The project started in 1999 to elaborate a methodology and practice to regularly gather systematic data on producer organizations in order to follow their development and strengthening. A first comprehensive overview of results is forthcoming in June 2007.
PIPGA – A support methodology developed for national farmers’ organizations to systematically consult their constituency, collect and summarize their points of view, have key issues researched by renowned scholars and advocated in the public debate with government and other social actors. See experiences of UNAG, Nicaragua; CNFR, Uruguay; FAA, Argentina
Other specific recommendations for improving the WDR
· 3.29 reads: “Farmers’ decisions are influenced by the experiences of farmers in their social networks, which can help reduce asymmetric information regarding the new technology.” It should add: Hence, the importance of the organization of farmers into associations and their horizontal and vertical integration into unions and federations. These organizations form the natural environment for spreading the news about new technologies and the success of colleague farmers in applying them.
· In 6.84 reference should be made to the Participatory Policy Generating Programme PIPGA that has supported member consultations of national farmers’ organizations in Latin America, linkages with institutes that can research positions taken by members, and advocacy training.
· Footnote 101 should be incorporated into the text of 6.85: Producer organizations in industrialized countries provide support to organizations in developing countries through their agri-agencies, like AGRITERRA for the Dutch cooperatives, rural women and farmers’ unions, or AFDI and FERT in France. Several European agri-agencies have allied themselves with the Canadian UPA-DI and the Japanese IDACA in AgriCord and signed a cooperation agreement with the International Federation of Agricultural Producers IFAP. The Dutch Government pledged already more than Euro 50 million to this type of direct support from farmer-to-farmer.
· The preceding message could be repeated in a new paragraph 11.74 by saying: Farmer-led, agricultural business or cooperative-led efforts for development cooperation emerged in France (FERT, AFDI), Sweden (SCC) and were copied more recently in the Netherlands (Agriterra). Their farmer-to-farmer cooperation combines direct contact among colleagues addressing productive, management, organizational and marketing issues for primary production but also for services and processing of agricultural produce. The agri-agencies strengthen the advocacy capacities of national farmers’ organizations, improve financial management and help to establish new businesses. Their performance is monitored through an extensive profiling system, which is producing a wealth of information and data on farmers’ organizations. Today the agri-agencies allied in AgriCord have 141 staff in OECD countries and over 215 in developing countries, and have an annual budget of Euro 57 million with operations in 60 countries.
· In Table 11.2 the new emerging farmer-led structure for development cooperation should have been included as AgriCord with a K for agricultural knowledge and an F for Finance/aid for agriculture.
· Include a text box on modern farmers’ organizations, like the following one:
Box 11.xx. Modern farmers’ organizations and co-operatives
Modern national farmers’ organizations are membership organisations, or federations of membership organizations. The members elect their leaders and are accountable to their constituency. Their constituency develops rural and agricultural activities with a certain importance within the country. They have a clear view on poverty reduction and believe that they themselves, as well as their members, can play a role in poverty reduction. Modern organizations are open to dialogue and collaboration. This shows also from their membership of regional and international federations, i.e. organizations that are already familiar with a framework for international cooperation.
In summary they have, at least, potentially, the following characteristics:
· Their constituency should represent a significant share of the rural population in their country.
· They should have the ambition to fulfil a specific role in development.
· They should work towards a society providing full political and economic participation of the rural population.
· They should always look for possibilities of constructive dialogue with other stakeholders (which does not preclude the option of strong protest when this is required).
· They should be open to exchange and dialogue with organizations from other countries.
· They should hold no ties with governments or political parties
· They should have democratic leadership,
In the case of collaboration with (federations of) cooperative societies, some additional criteria should be applied, like being companies that assign rights as well as duties to the membership status and that are open to cooperation and change. Mutual assistance should always be at the centre, combined with a business-like management and the ambition to achieve a positive result. The members should be the owners, having the final word in decisions regarding policy and the distribution of economic benefits.
Source: Farmers Fighting Poverty, brochure International Seminar 2006
Arnhem, April 12, 2007Dr. Kees Blokland (Agriterra) & Dr. Jan Brouwers (Wageningen International)
[1] Such relations with OECD country FO’s, with private sector, with relevant research and training centres worldwide are promoted within IFAP, through AgriCord. In the Netherlands, the Agri-ProFocus network.
Sunday, March 25, 2007
Awareness raising becomes natural collateral of practical work among farmers worldwide
Nothing is more inspiring as when to hear people from the in Agriterra paryicipating farmers organisations tell enthusiastically concerning their experiences. In March 75 farmers from the whole region in the South of the Netherlands belonging to ZLTO, one of the three branches of the farmers federation of the Netherlands, came together in a study event. From the introducing words of Kees Coppens and Ton Duffhues it became clear that international cooperation has been anchored in a perfect manner in the complete organisation of the ZLTO. Like with all other issues, development cooperation has office holders at all levels of the organisation, there are structural links with other with the offices, local groups liaise with higher levels and the ideas and initiatives are screened in a clear manner. There is also an investment in making people enthusiatic for this part of the work of the ZLTO. The study day was of this a good example.
Splendid experiences passed the revue. Caracteristic was the anecdote of Lambert Bardoel who for Agriterra/AgroNed's project in Romania regularly visited producers in Rumania for improvement of the tomatoes - and paprika cultivation. When he observed that in the warm summer did not survive a large part of the seedlings, he suggested to use plastic coffee cups to let them grow protected. After they were strong enough, the cup was then cut open and the little plant was put in the ground. The next year the field showed a significantly better production. A farmer told enthusiastically that he had adopted this method, but that he did not cut the cups open. He thought it a waste. If you press with your inch against the base the seedling comes also and the cup can be "recycled"! He introduced this method meanwhile to the other farmers. He showed Lambert in its barn a large stock plastic coffee cups. During the annual beer party the cups were left spread in the party area, so he and his wife came at night and collected them all!
A another nice story was told by Bert Sandee. He met in Niger a stock breeder who also cultivated strawberries for hotels in the city. Bert told him how we in the Netherlands mislead the strawberry plants by laying them during a short time in the refrigeration. Once taken out, the leittle plant thinks that spring has come and will start giving strawberries. The Nigerees impressed by splendid story, explained that it was similar to what he himself does with its guinea fowls. Regularly he climbs on the roof of his barn and with a watering-can trows water on it. The guinea fowls think then that the rain season has started and begin to lay eggs. A splendid example of how everyone comes on his own side of the world eventually with some serendipity to the same ideas.
Also Wilma van der Weele had good experiences in Niger. What especially stood out in her story was how well the 'from farmer-to-farmer' method for horizontal exchange on technology works. Colleagues worldwide understand each other. That is a first requirement for a good contact. She found a Niger consultant which had established contact with the farmers of thye Farmers Platform in Niger on behalf of a foreign developing organisation. But in spite of the fact that he wasa compatriot, the contact was less smooth. This had very much to do with his attidtude of consultant, that compared negatively to colleagues that exchange information on an equal level.
All these stories told by farmers of the ZLTO illustrate how much of the development cooperation principles of Agriterra are completely internalized in the Dutch ZLTO and how these concepts are introduced on a systematic bases to all office holders. This is as such a great story on how awareness raising becomes a natural collateral of practical support efforts among farmers.
Splendid experiences passed the revue. Caracteristic was the anecdote of Lambert Bardoel who for Agriterra/AgroNed's project in Romania regularly visited producers in Rumania for improvement of the tomatoes - and paprika cultivation. When he observed that in the warm summer did not survive a large part of the seedlings, he suggested to use plastic coffee cups to let them grow protected. After they were strong enough, the cup was then cut open and the little plant was put in the ground. The next year the field showed a significantly better production. A farmer told enthusiastically that he had adopted this method, but that he did not cut the cups open. He thought it a waste. If you press with your inch against the base the seedling comes also and the cup can be "recycled"! He introduced this method meanwhile to the other farmers. He showed Lambert in its barn a large stock plastic coffee cups. During the annual beer party the cups were left spread in the party area, so he and his wife came at night and collected them all!
A another nice story was told by Bert Sandee. He met in Niger a stock breeder who also cultivated strawberries for hotels in the city. Bert told him how we in the Netherlands mislead the strawberry plants by laying them during a short time in the refrigeration. Once taken out, the leittle plant thinks that spring has come and will start giving strawberries. The Nigerees impressed by splendid story, explained that it was similar to what he himself does with its guinea fowls. Regularly he climbs on the roof of his barn and with a watering-can trows water on it. The guinea fowls think then that the rain season has started and begin to lay eggs. A splendid example of how everyone comes on his own side of the world eventually with some serendipity to the same ideas.
Also Wilma van der Weele had good experiences in Niger. What especially stood out in her story was how well the 'from farmer-to-farmer' method for horizontal exchange on technology works. Colleagues worldwide understand each other. That is a first requirement for a good contact. She found a Niger consultant which had established contact with the farmers of thye Farmers Platform in Niger on behalf of a foreign developing organisation. But in spite of the fact that he wasa compatriot, the contact was less smooth. This had very much to do with his attidtude of consultant, that compared negatively to colleagues that exchange information on an equal level.
All these stories told by farmers of the ZLTO illustrate how much of the development cooperation principles of Agriterra are completely internalized in the Dutch ZLTO and how these concepts are introduced on a systematic bases to all office holders. This is as such a great story on how awareness raising becomes a natural collateral of practical support efforts among farmers.
Monday, February 5, 2007
Wednesday, January 24, 2007
Tuesday, January 23, 2007
Saturday, January 20, 2007
Peer-to-peer exchanges and diffusion of technology in an organized farmer framework
In the projections of Farmers Fighting Poverty the number of peer-to-peer missions, farmers from OECD countries that bring advise and support to their colleagues in the developing world, increases from 150 in 2007 to 461 in 2010. This increase follows the general increase in activities that is hoped to be achieved by the agri-agencies and OECD based farmers unions. They will be active in farmers organizations’ projects that will directly involve 2.7 million farmers from developing countries as active participants of these projects. These farmers belong to associations and federations with a membership of almost 25 million farmers. This is about 10% of the total organized peasantry worldwide. This total is one way or another linked to the development effort though the national, regional and worldwide bodies to which these associations belong.
Involving 1% of this organized farming sector in development cooperation activities or bringing in expertise for 34 full time equivalents a year cannot seriously be thought to spur economic development, bring democracy or reduce poverty, one would say. Still, this can be envisaged taking into consideration that the 1% participants should be entrepreneurs carefully selected among the total membership of the organizations involved. Combining theories on entrepreneurship, human and social capital with the economic theory of technological diffusion, one could probably come to an understanding of the dynamics of the force of development of an organized frameworks like farmers’ organizations. Up to now, we only harvested stories on this subject, like AgriPool expert Bert Sandee’s one: he introduced in Niger a rack to conserve onions. In a follow-up mission he found farmers using this rack 1.500 kilometres form the site where he had shown one for the first time. And they explicitly referred to the fact that they learnt this from their national federation that had information obtained from a foreign expert.
In terms of the diffusion study of Bryce Ryan and Neal Gross (1943) the farmers we are aiming at are innovators and early adopters. As one recalls Ryan’s and Gross’s study tracked the adoption of the new hybrid seed corn by farmers. Ryan chose hybrid corn as the focus of investigation on social factors in economic decisions. The objective was to study how an farmer’s social relationships with his neighbors influenced the individual’s decision to adopt hybrid corn. Gross, a graduate student in sociology, was hired as a research assistant on the hybrid corn diffusion project. Ryan and Gross selected two small communities located west of , and proceeded to interview all of the farmers living there.
Over the course of the study period 1928-1941, all but two of the 259 farmers studied had adopted the new hybrid corn. When plotted cumulatively on a year-by-year basis, the adoption rate formed an S-shape curve over time. After the first five years, by 1933, only five percent of the farmers had adopted the new corn. By 1936, 40 percent had decided to adopt the hybrid corn. Then the rate of adoption leveled off as fewer and fewer farmers remained to adopt the new seed.
Farmers were assigned to categories based on when they adopted the new seed. The five segments of farmers who adopted the hybrid corn seed, or adopter categories, and their percentages relative to the study group are:
(1) innovators (5%),
(2) early adopters (10%),
(3) early majority (35%),
(4) late majority (35%), and
(5) laggards (15%).
Compared to later adopters (Early Adopters Early Majority, Late Majority, Laggards) Innovators had larger-sized farms, higher incomes, and more years of formal education. The innovators were judged to be more cosmopolitan, as measured by their number of trips to Des Moines (’s largest city, located about seventy-five miles away). This first group of farmers, most importantly, had the ability to both understand and apply complex technical knowledge, and to cope with a high degree of uncertainty about new ideas or technology.
In other words, the innovator group was capable of making a decision based solely on information. This group also had the financial means to be able to take a risk. In this respect, the categories of adopter groups in the Diffusion Model can be correlated to their financial means and tolerance to risk.
The second group, the Early Adopters, were typically respected members of the rural community and often were in dual roles as both farmers and role models in the banking, real estate, government, educational or religious institutions of the area. This group was highly successful and had the highest degree of opinion leadership and peer respect among all the categories in the Ryan and Gross study.
We think that we recruit farmers for international exchanges from these groups of early adaptors and innovators, giving their exposure to international contacts them the cosmopolitan outlook. But more important we think that by recruiting them from farmers' organizations, being most of them respected farm leaders, they have that frequent interaction with other farmers that spurs of diffusion to the early majority.
The third group, the Early Majority, was characterized by frequent social interaction with their peers but seldom had positions of opinion leadership. This group tended to undergo considerable deliberation in every decision.
The Late Majority group represented fully one-third of the total population studied and, while generally skeptical and cautious, was most susceptible to the influence of peer pressure. This group was often guided by economic necessity since its members were among the less financially successful in the community.
The final group, the Laggards, generally had no opinion leadership in the community, tended to be somewhat socially isolated, was suspicious of new ideas and had limited financial resources. This group is characterized by the over-my-dead-body philosophy of change.
The typical farmer in the Bryan-Gross study moved slowly from awareness and knowledge of the innovation to adoption despite the obvious, objective advantage of the new corn over the open-pollinated variety it was adopted to replace. The innovation-decision period from first knowledge to the adoption decision averaged about nine years for all respondents in spite of the tremendously successful results of farmers who first adopted the new seed. In addition, the average respondent took three or four years after planting his first hybrid seed, usually on a small trial plot, before deciding to plant 100 percent of his corn acreage in hybrid varieties.
The critical insight in Ryan and Gross’s study is that only the first group, the Innovators, based their decision to adopt the new corn on information. The middle groups of adopters decided to try the new technology based on the opinion or experience of others. The latest groups to adopt the hybrid corn seed were motivated more by momentum than information or opinion.
Organization of farmers, especially in the kind of open associations with members who have multi-stranded realtions becasue they participate in a variety of gremia, influences -as we suppose- especially the middle groups.
(Source: http://www.hgs.org/en/art/?1019 and Blokland, 2007 'peer-to-peer exchanges and economic development. forthcoming)
Involving 1% of this organized farming sector in development cooperation activities or bringing in expertise for 34 full time equivalents a year cannot seriously be thought to spur economic development, bring democracy or reduce poverty, one would say. Still, this can be envisaged taking into consideration that the 1% participants should be entrepreneurs carefully selected among the total membership of the organizations involved. Combining theories on entrepreneurship, human and social capital with the economic theory of technological diffusion, one could probably come to an understanding of the dynamics of the force of development of an organized frameworks like farmers’ organizations. Up to now, we only harvested stories on this subject, like AgriPool expert Bert Sandee’s one: he introduced in Niger a rack to conserve onions. In a follow-up mission he found farmers using this rack 1.500 kilometres form the site where he had shown one for the first time. And they explicitly referred to the fact that they learnt this from their national federation that had information obtained from a foreign expert.
In terms of the diffusion study of Bryce Ryan and Neal Gross (1943) the farmers we are aiming at are innovators and early adopters. As one recalls Ryan’s and Gross’s study tracked the adoption of the new hybrid seed corn by farmers. Ryan chose hybrid corn as the focus of investigation on social factors in economic decisions. The objective was to study how an farmer’s social relationships with his neighbors influenced the individual’s decision to adopt hybrid corn. Gross, a graduate student in sociology, was hired as a research assistant on the hybrid corn diffusion project. Ryan and Gross selected two small communities located west of , and proceeded to interview all of the farmers living there.
Over the course of the study period 1928-1941, all but two of the 259 farmers studied had adopted the new hybrid corn. When plotted cumulatively on a year-by-year basis, the adoption rate formed an S-shape curve over time. After the first five years, by 1933, only five percent of the farmers had adopted the new corn. By 1936, 40 percent had decided to adopt the hybrid corn. Then the rate of adoption leveled off as fewer and fewer farmers remained to adopt the new seed.
Farmers were assigned to categories based on when they adopted the new seed. The five segments of farmers who adopted the hybrid corn seed, or adopter categories, and their percentages relative to the study group are:
(1) innovators (5%),
(2) early adopters (10%),
(3) early majority (35%),
(4) late majority (35%), and
(5) laggards (15%).
Compared to later adopters (Early Adopters Early Majority, Late Majority, Laggards) Innovators had larger-sized farms, higher incomes, and more years of formal education. The innovators were judged to be more cosmopolitan, as measured by their number of trips to Des Moines (’s largest city, located about seventy-five miles away). This first group of farmers, most importantly, had the ability to both understand and apply complex technical knowledge, and to cope with a high degree of uncertainty about new ideas or technology.
In other words, the innovator group was capable of making a decision based solely on information. This group also had the financial means to be able to take a risk. In this respect, the categories of adopter groups in the Diffusion Model can be correlated to their financial means and tolerance to risk.
The second group, the Early Adopters, were typically respected members of the rural community and often were in dual roles as both farmers and role models in the banking, real estate, government, educational or religious institutions of the area. This group was highly successful and had the highest degree of opinion leadership and peer respect among all the categories in the Ryan and Gross study.
We think that we recruit farmers for international exchanges from these groups of early adaptors and innovators, giving their exposure to international contacts them the cosmopolitan outlook. But more important we think that by recruiting them from farmers' organizations, being most of them respected farm leaders, they have that frequent interaction with other farmers that spurs of diffusion to the early majority.
The third group, the Early Majority, was characterized by frequent social interaction with their peers but seldom had positions of opinion leadership. This group tended to undergo considerable deliberation in every decision.
The Late Majority group represented fully one-third of the total population studied and, while generally skeptical and cautious, was most susceptible to the influence of peer pressure. This group was often guided by economic necessity since its members were among the less financially successful in the community.
The final group, the Laggards, generally had no opinion leadership in the community, tended to be somewhat socially isolated, was suspicious of new ideas and had limited financial resources. This group is characterized by the over-my-dead-body philosophy of change.
The typical farmer in the Bryan-Gross study moved slowly from awareness and knowledge of the innovation to adoption despite the obvious, objective advantage of the new corn over the open-pollinated variety it was adopted to replace. The innovation-decision period from first knowledge to the adoption decision averaged about nine years for all respondents in spite of the tremendously successful results of farmers who first adopted the new seed. In addition, the average respondent took three or four years after planting his first hybrid seed, usually on a small trial plot, before deciding to plant 100 percent of his corn acreage in hybrid varieties.
The critical insight in Ryan and Gross’s study is that only the first group, the Innovators, based their decision to adopt the new corn on information. The middle groups of adopters decided to try the new technology based on the opinion or experience of others. The latest groups to adopt the hybrid corn seed were motivated more by momentum than information or opinion.
Organization of farmers, especially in the kind of open associations with members who have multi-stranded realtions becasue they participate in a variety of gremia, influences -as we suppose- especially the middle groups.
(Source: http://www.hgs.org/en/art/?1019 and Blokland, 2007 'peer-to-peer exchanges and economic development. forthcoming)
Wednesday, January 17, 2007
Challenges for farmers in Vietnam: VNFU & exports
Agriterra’s –and later AgriCord’s involvement with Vietnam was due to liaison officer Rik Delnoye who was previously stationed in that country. In a first mission in 2001, he assessed the possibilities and priorities for establishing more structural collaboration between the Vietnam National Farmers Union (VNFU), Agriterra and its supporting Dutch farmers’ organisations. He linked this prospection visit to a three-days workshop organised by the Vietnam Cooperative Alliance and the International Cooperative Alliance (ICA). This worldwide alliance of cooperative enterprise implemented a project (financially supported by Agriterra) in six Asian countries in order to strengthening the cooperative movements.
VNFU claims 8 million members and is a mass organization of the ruling communist party. Its structures go up from cooperative and community level up to the national level. In 2003 Agriterra started to financially support six provincial level farmers associations of the VNFU, using the network of organised farmers and selected outstanding farmers to promote improved agricultural systems and techniques. The activities are linked to the national policy of reforming the agricultural sector by stepwise integration in the market economy. Model farms demonstrate the advantages of new agricultural techniques to the network of outstanding farmers. Farmer-to-farmer extension is used to disseminate knowledge and skills, including post-harvest treatment and marketing issues. Not by the establishment of parallel extension programmes, but by benefiting from the improved farmer organisation and linking them to existing extension services.
In that same year the president of VNFU participated in the festivities of the V anniversary of Agriterra, meeting farm leaders from all over world in an AgriCord patronized seminar From Plunder to Economic Democratization. His plea was in favour of lowering trade barriers to European, Oceanic and North-American markets.
Trade issues came high on the agenda in 2003, mainly due the development and trade agenda of WTO. A consortium of Development organisations SNV, Oxfam, Agriterra informed the Vietnamese VNFU and women’s organisation VUSTA in workshop ‘WTO , Food security and Poverty Alleviation’ about the challenges and hazards of the upcoming WTO membership of Vietnam. LTO director Mrs. Ria van Rossum reflected the standpoints and experiences towards the WTO from a Dutch (& European) farmers view.
Later that year, the nascent Asian Farmers Alliance organized its sub-regional consultation for the Mekong cluster in Thailand with farmers representatives of five countries, including 16 vietnamese farm leaders to formulate a joint Asian Peasant Agenda on Sustainable Rural Development. The agenda of the AFA Executive commission meeting linked to the consultation addressed the further strengthening of the organisational structure of AFA and preparations for the AFA General Assembly to be held early 2004 in Indonesia. Regretfully, the national direction of party objected full AFA membership to VNFU.
With support of AgriCord VNFU started in 2004 an extension of the agricultural technology improvement and extension programme. In six provinces model farms and demonstration plots were established. Crops are selected after research into profitability and include aqua-culture, livestock, agriculture, agro-forestry and floriculture. The activities are seen as an integral part of the national policy to restructure agricultural production and integrate it into the world market.
Evidence demonstrate that in aquaculture good results were realized as in shrimps in Quang Binh Province income of farmers increased tenfold and with turtles in Hang Giang Province even 15 times. Yet, also became notably urgent the introduction of measures to guarantee sustainability of the cultures. Vietnam was at that point, as was also the conclusion of the referred workshop, not yet prepared to compete in international markets due to their lack of knowledge and skills to produce in line with international food safety and quality standards.
A new project enhances the capacities and skills of farmers to maintain international food safety and quality standards by formulating and setting out standard protocols for safe and high quality food production. At the same time testing facilities (for crop residues) were established and made available for farmers. These activities were especially focussing horticultural products. Agriterra launched a technical support mission for training about quality and safety regulations (EurepGAP, MRLs etc.), to indentify promising product-market combinations.
By then, and we are now talking 2006, Agriterra also made progress on its other front in Vietnam with the ICA Asia Chapter. The all-Asia Conference on the role of cooperatives in Poverty Alleviation, hosted by the Viet Nam Cooperative Alliance (VCA) stressed the role of cooperatives in implementing the Poverty Reduction Strategies (PRSPs). Agriterra supports VCA in the implementation of an enabling legal environment for the development and operation of (agro-) cooperative enterprises.
Vietnam shows a case of a powerful farmers organization that efficiently builds new services and tries to catch up with globalization following national policies. The lack of two-way communication in VNFU is due to the overall political setting in the country. Following previous experiences in Nicaragua, a political machine of this kind can eventually be turned into a powerful instrument for services to farmers, access to agricultural inputs and credit covering all remote corners of the country. When obeying Lenin’s democratic centralism, it could even turn into a voice and advocate of true farmers interests. The opportunity arises to gradually transform VNFU in a genuine spokesman of farmer interests. This a long way to go, but worth the effort.
VNFU claims 8 million members and is a mass organization of the ruling communist party. Its structures go up from cooperative and community level up to the national level. In 2003 Agriterra started to financially support six provincial level farmers associations of the VNFU, using the network of organised farmers and selected outstanding farmers to promote improved agricultural systems and techniques. The activities are linked to the national policy of reforming the agricultural sector by stepwise integration in the market economy. Model farms demonstrate the advantages of new agricultural techniques to the network of outstanding farmers. Farmer-to-farmer extension is used to disseminate knowledge and skills, including post-harvest treatment and marketing issues. Not by the establishment of parallel extension programmes, but by benefiting from the improved farmer organisation and linking them to existing extension services.
In that same year the president of VNFU participated in the festivities of the V anniversary of Agriterra, meeting farm leaders from all over world in an AgriCord patronized seminar From Plunder to Economic Democratization. His plea was in favour of lowering trade barriers to European, Oceanic and North-American markets.
Trade issues came high on the agenda in 2003, mainly due the development and trade agenda of WTO. A consortium of Development organisations SNV, Oxfam, Agriterra informed the Vietnamese VNFU and women’s organisation VUSTA in workshop ‘WTO , Food security and Poverty Alleviation’ about the challenges and hazards of the upcoming WTO membership of Vietnam. LTO director Mrs. Ria van Rossum reflected the standpoints and experiences towards the WTO from a Dutch (& European) farmers view.
Later that year, the nascent Asian Farmers Alliance organized its sub-regional consultation for the Mekong cluster in Thailand with farmers representatives of five countries, including 16 vietnamese farm leaders to formulate a joint Asian Peasant Agenda on Sustainable Rural Development. The agenda of the AFA Executive commission meeting linked to the consultation addressed the further strengthening of the organisational structure of AFA and preparations for the AFA General Assembly to be held early 2004 in Indonesia. Regretfully, the national direction of party objected full AFA membership to VNFU.
With support of AgriCord VNFU started in 2004 an extension of the agricultural technology improvement and extension programme. In six provinces model farms and demonstration plots were established. Crops are selected after research into profitability and include aqua-culture, livestock, agriculture, agro-forestry and floriculture. The activities are seen as an integral part of the national policy to restructure agricultural production and integrate it into the world market.
Evidence demonstrate that in aquaculture good results were realized as in shrimps in Quang Binh Province income of farmers increased tenfold and with turtles in Hang Giang Province even 15 times. Yet, also became notably urgent the introduction of measures to guarantee sustainability of the cultures. Vietnam was at that point, as was also the conclusion of the referred workshop, not yet prepared to compete in international markets due to their lack of knowledge and skills to produce in line with international food safety and quality standards.
A new project enhances the capacities and skills of farmers to maintain international food safety and quality standards by formulating and setting out standard protocols for safe and high quality food production. At the same time testing facilities (for crop residues) were established and made available for farmers. These activities were especially focussing horticultural products. Agriterra launched a technical support mission for training about quality and safety regulations (EurepGAP, MRLs etc.), to indentify promising product-market combinations.
By then, and we are now talking 2006, Agriterra also made progress on its other front in Vietnam with the ICA Asia Chapter. The all-Asia Conference on the role of cooperatives in Poverty Alleviation, hosted by the Viet Nam Cooperative Alliance (VCA) stressed the role of cooperatives in implementing the Poverty Reduction Strategies (PRSPs). Agriterra supports VCA in the implementation of an enabling legal environment for the development and operation of (agro-) cooperative enterprises.
Vietnam shows a case of a powerful farmers organization that efficiently builds new services and tries to catch up with globalization following national policies. The lack of two-way communication in VNFU is due to the overall political setting in the country. Following previous experiences in Nicaragua, a political machine of this kind can eventually be turned into a powerful instrument for services to farmers, access to agricultural inputs and credit covering all remote corners of the country. When obeying Lenin’s democratic centralism, it could even turn into a voice and advocate of true farmers interests. The opportunity arises to gradually transform VNFU in a genuine spokesman of farmer interests. This a long way to go, but worth the effort.
Saturday, January 13, 2007
The advantage of linking farmer organization internationally
Ecooperation, the Dutch foundation that steered the agreements for sustainable development that the government had signed with Costa Rica, Bhutan and Benin, suggested Agriterra in the mid 1980s to work with the farmers of Benin. The first action was an inventory, consulting a dozen Dutch NGOs and institutes with a track record in that country with the objective to know the rural people’s organizations that might exist. Apart from SNV, that informed that at grass-roots level association and women’s groups were active, the consulted persons indicated that farmers were unorganized. This diagnosis became an example of NGO blindness for genuine organization of the people and their biased attention for local NGOs, so recurrent in development cooperation at that time. This was so, because a short visit and diagnosis conducted by Agriterra revealed that there existed a farmers’ federation with national aspirations (FUPRO) and a Chambre d’Agriculture[1]. The same study illustrated that this farmers organization remained weak in the poor south of the country.
With Agriterra’s support FUPRO started to work in these regions. This was important, because the initiators of FUPRO are cotton farmers. Being an export product and also produced on larger farms, FUPRO was branded a rich farmers federation. In these regions FUPRO started to improve the chains of cassava, palm oil and pineapple. AFDI, the French agri-agency, illustrated the results in the latter case during the Farmers Fighting Poverty seminar in Arnhem, 2006[2]. The NLTO deputy president Willy Schutte and policy officer Douwe Hollenga started the cooperation of this Northern LTO branch with FUPRO and geared their attention to the cotton sector. The possibilities of organic cotton were commonly explored. Directors, staff and members of FUPRO visited the Netherlands in numerous occasions for exchanges with LTO and French farmers or to present vegetables on the Rotterdam AGF fair. Staff of NLTO commented on plans of FUPRO to start a demonstration farm for sustainable agricultural production. In 2003 NLTO directors were involved in the reorganisation discussions in FUPRO that ultimately gave the cotton growers branch status and representation as branch in the FUPRO board.
In 2002 Klaas Jan Osinga visited FUPRO for the first time participating in a conference on organic cotton. This niche product was seen as a way out of the crisis in cotton that was due to low prices. These were attributed to the subsidized exports from the United States, the second biggest exporter in the world. Indebtness of cotton producers was the result. Yet, the study did not give evidence that this could become a solution for the cotton sector of Benin. The monopolist position of the state ginnery seemed to be more urgent to change. During the IFAP World farmers Conference in 2003 in Washington, Osinga introduced FUPRO directors to the National Cotton Council of the United States. In that occasion the FUPRO directors got two eye-openers: one to regain the market, careful designed marketing is needed to create an unique selling point for West-African cotton; and, not so much United States’ subsidized cotton but the developments in major producing countries as China and India will dictate the opportunities for West-African cotton in the world market.
The case of FUPRO shows the benefits of the contact that can be made trough the international cooperation, especially when not confined to one country but –like in this case- explicitly linking it to Dutch and French efforts and placing them in the IFAP framework.
[1] Agriterra, 1998; Agriterra, CIEPAC, AJF, CBDD, 1999
[2] http://www.farmersfightingpoverty.org/cases1-1.html
With Agriterra’s support FUPRO started to work in these regions. This was important, because the initiators of FUPRO are cotton farmers. Being an export product and also produced on larger farms, FUPRO was branded a rich farmers federation. In these regions FUPRO started to improve the chains of cassava, palm oil and pineapple. AFDI, the French agri-agency, illustrated the results in the latter case during the Farmers Fighting Poverty seminar in Arnhem, 2006[2]. The NLTO deputy president Willy Schutte and policy officer Douwe Hollenga started the cooperation of this Northern LTO branch with FUPRO and geared their attention to the cotton sector. The possibilities of organic cotton were commonly explored. Directors, staff and members of FUPRO visited the Netherlands in numerous occasions for exchanges with LTO and French farmers or to present vegetables on the Rotterdam AGF fair. Staff of NLTO commented on plans of FUPRO to start a demonstration farm for sustainable agricultural production. In 2003 NLTO directors were involved in the reorganisation discussions in FUPRO that ultimately gave the cotton growers branch status and representation as branch in the FUPRO board.
In 2002 Klaas Jan Osinga visited FUPRO for the first time participating in a conference on organic cotton. This niche product was seen as a way out of the crisis in cotton that was due to low prices. These were attributed to the subsidized exports from the United States, the second biggest exporter in the world. Indebtness of cotton producers was the result. Yet, the study did not give evidence that this could become a solution for the cotton sector of Benin. The monopolist position of the state ginnery seemed to be more urgent to change. During the IFAP World farmers Conference in 2003 in Washington, Osinga introduced FUPRO directors to the National Cotton Council of the United States. In that occasion the FUPRO directors got two eye-openers: one to regain the market, careful designed marketing is needed to create an unique selling point for West-African cotton; and, not so much United States’ subsidized cotton but the developments in major producing countries as China and India will dictate the opportunities for West-African cotton in the world market.
The case of FUPRO shows the benefits of the contact that can be made trough the international cooperation, especially when not confined to one country but –like in this case- explicitly linking it to Dutch and French efforts and placing them in the IFAP framework.
[1] Agriterra, 1998; Agriterra, CIEPAC, AJF, CBDD, 1999
[2] http://www.farmersfightingpoverty.org/cases1-1.html
Wednesday, January 10, 2007
By looking in a Dutch mirror, 120 million farmers got organized in India
In 2001 Ria van Rossum visited India in a prospection mission, in order to pre-evaluate the potential of the Andhra Pradesh Federation of Farmers’ organizations. Van Rossum was a woman farmer, member of the regional LTO organization in the West of the Netherlands (WLTO). She held at the time director positions and was president of the commission development cooperation of the LTO branch. Later she became also president of the advisory council of Agriterra, the Dutch agri-agency. In the five years in office -she stepped back in 2006 when she and her husband decided to retire and sell the farm- she was active in recruiting AgriPool personnel for many assignments. She was also instigator of the WLTO Central Africa collaboration that provided support to organizations in Rwanda, DR Congo and Kenya. In that sense, India was not her mayor contribution, but still one that shows the impact of this type of experts.
Van Rossum concluded from her prospection that the FFAP had potential, especially because of her influential and dedicated president. At the same time it lacked close links with the claimed members. In 2002 she invited president Chengal Reddy for a return visit in allusion of World Food Day. He visited in that period LTO. The relations with WLTO and the focus of Agriterra on exclusively farmers organizations helped FFAP enormously to define itself as a farmers’ organization and break away from the idea of building an NGO type of institution giving support to farmers.
From that point FFAP started to work with Agriterra on the consolidation of the federation through building linkages with 200 existing farmers associations. Van Rossum assisted in the formulation of the support project to FFAP and recruited the head of the trainings unit of WLTO to give leaderships training to FFAP directors. A few years later, FFAP had established 247 local association, trained over 1200 women farm leaders for income generating activities. More important may be for the future of the federation were the outward linkages that were institutionalized with parliamentarians (Agricultural Forum of Congressman) and with the industry (Indian Farmers and Industry Alliance). The influence of the FFAP increased on subjects as credit, access to water, protection of the home market.
Within a few years, guided by the example of farmers’ organizations around the globe, FFAP had built a respected federation with links to many farmers’ organizations in other states. The state plan for agriculture cannot be approved without FFAP have had to say something about them in the press. Advocacy, business development and effective services to members especially on agricultural technology (FFAP is a fervent advocate for biotechnology and advances innovations for agriculture) were the central issues of the ever expanding FFAP. Rural ICT, rural Olympics for young farmers and women, along with an extensive training programme marked the connection with rank and file.
Developments at this point were not longer triggered by Dutch input. Instead Agriterra started to contract the expertise of Anil Epur, the person who was responsible for the connections of FFAP with the industry, as PO-advisor. Among the various dealt by Epur stands out his involvement in introducing colleague organizations in new ICT solutions. Andhra Pradesh is Asia’s Silicon Valley. Some of mango producing associations of FFAP moved to new successes when their productive improvements, networking and advocacy made them interesting for Coca Cola to contract them as preferred supplier for its ‘Frooti’, the number one mango drink in India. Another hit was the establishment of the Confederation of Indian Farmers Associations, an initiative heavily promoted by FFAP in which it explicitly recognized the support of Agriterra and Anil Epur. This institutionalized farmer alliance groups together farmers’ organizations with a total membership of 120 million Indian farmers. Read this figure carefully and reflect on it!
The central issue that emerges from this case is that the Dutch example is that it shows farming India the mirror of its own organizational future; words chosen this way because they recall Karl Marx’ appreciation of British imperialism in India. Chengal Reddy looked into the mirror and knew what to do.
Van Rossum concluded from her prospection that the FFAP had potential, especially because of her influential and dedicated president. At the same time it lacked close links with the claimed members. In 2002 she invited president Chengal Reddy for a return visit in allusion of World Food Day. He visited in that period LTO. The relations with WLTO and the focus of Agriterra on exclusively farmers organizations helped FFAP enormously to define itself as a farmers’ organization and break away from the idea of building an NGO type of institution giving support to farmers.
From that point FFAP started to work with Agriterra on the consolidation of the federation through building linkages with 200 existing farmers associations. Van Rossum assisted in the formulation of the support project to FFAP and recruited the head of the trainings unit of WLTO to give leaderships training to FFAP directors. A few years later, FFAP had established 247 local association, trained over 1200 women farm leaders for income generating activities. More important may be for the future of the federation were the outward linkages that were institutionalized with parliamentarians (Agricultural Forum of Congressman) and with the industry (Indian Farmers and Industry Alliance). The influence of the FFAP increased on subjects as credit, access to water, protection of the home market.
Within a few years, guided by the example of farmers’ organizations around the globe, FFAP had built a respected federation with links to many farmers’ organizations in other states. The state plan for agriculture cannot be approved without FFAP have had to say something about them in the press. Advocacy, business development and effective services to members especially on agricultural technology (FFAP is a fervent advocate for biotechnology and advances innovations for agriculture) were the central issues of the ever expanding FFAP. Rural ICT, rural Olympics for young farmers and women, along with an extensive training programme marked the connection with rank and file.
Developments at this point were not longer triggered by Dutch input. Instead Agriterra started to contract the expertise of Anil Epur, the person who was responsible for the connections of FFAP with the industry, as PO-advisor. Among the various dealt by Epur stands out his involvement in introducing colleague organizations in new ICT solutions. Andhra Pradesh is Asia’s Silicon Valley. Some of mango producing associations of FFAP moved to new successes when their productive improvements, networking and advocacy made them interesting for Coca Cola to contract them as preferred supplier for its ‘Frooti’, the number one mango drink in India. Another hit was the establishment of the Confederation of Indian Farmers Associations, an initiative heavily promoted by FFAP in which it explicitly recognized the support of Agriterra and Anil Epur. This institutionalized farmer alliance groups together farmers’ organizations with a total membership of 120 million Indian farmers. Read this figure carefully and reflect on it!
The central issue that emerges from this case is that the Dutch example is that it shows farming India the mirror of its own organizational future; words chosen this way because they recall Karl Marx’ appreciation of British imperialism in India. Chengal Reddy looked into the mirror and knew what to do.
Dutch regional farmers union helps to built independent Thai farmers federation
The involvement of the farmers in the south of Netherlands with Thailand remotes to the late 1970s and 1980s, times of the criticism of development agencies on the import of cassava as feeder crop for cattle. The imbalanced growth of our national herd and the corresponding manure and environmental problems were illustrated by the 7 hectares outside the Netherlands that were needed to feed the cows grazing one hectare at home. Contact in Thailand centred around a Dutch expatriate and a NGO support by Cebemo, a catholic development agency of those days.
Directly after the foundation of Agriterra in 1998, ZLTO approached Agriterra in order to coordinate its activities in Thailand. From the situation as observed by the Agriterra liaison officer we learned that the institute that was supported by ZLTO was no farmers association, but in fact an NGO dependent from the Ministry of Agriculture. To built and support an independent farmers’ organization, which was the intention of both the ZLTO as some of the Thai involved, required two steps, breaking away form the ministry and bringing the NGO under democratic farmer governance.
Kees van Bohemen visited in the period up to 2006 approximately a dozen times the country and was involved in the transition, advising by given the example of development of the farmers association in southern Netherlands. In return visits, ZLTO branches illustrated their policy preparation, negotiations and advocacy at all organizational levels, having their guests participate in meetings and special workshops. Strategically strengthening the farmers organization in ten districts, FAD (as was the initially chosen name) achieved to organize approximately 20.000 farmers and rural women, mostly clustering existing associations. Through well directed training on leadership and election of directors at all levels, a solid organization was built. Agriterra assisted in the building up of the national secretariat with function descriptions, procedures and communication.
The relation with Thailand is well embedded in the ZLTO. Its president and several directors and employees have visited the country. Missions to the country and return visits are well covered in the (Nieuwe) Oogst, the magazine of LTO. Contributions of members are collected locally and from 2005 onwards the local branches started to contribute to the upper levels of FAD. All offices centrally and in the districts count with computerized member registrations. The building up on district level counted with the support of the government. Advocacy on the debts of farmers resulted in a major debt reduction and a strong focus on savings & credit institutions, in a fruit collaboration with the Credit Union league of Thailand (CULT) and technical advise from ACCU, the Thailand based Asian Association of Credit Unions, a long time relation of several Dutch agencies. SorKorPor as it was re-baptized, became member of the newly established Asian Farmer Alliance, born from Agriterra’s involvement with the Philippine NGO Asiadhrra. For the coming years, SorKorPor will be a frontrunner in trying to bring the focus of its activities and the corresponding development cooperation to the lower levels of the organization building strength at grass roots level.
The central lesson from this case is the force of the combination of understanding of the development context, the expertise of Agriterra’s liaison officers, in combination with the specific organizational expertise of ZLTO.
Directly after the foundation of Agriterra in 1998, ZLTO approached Agriterra in order to coordinate its activities in Thailand. From the situation as observed by the Agriterra liaison officer we learned that the institute that was supported by ZLTO was no farmers association, but in fact an NGO dependent from the Ministry of Agriculture. To built and support an independent farmers’ organization, which was the intention of both the ZLTO as some of the Thai involved, required two steps, breaking away form the ministry and bringing the NGO under democratic farmer governance.
Kees van Bohemen visited in the period up to 2006 approximately a dozen times the country and was involved in the transition, advising by given the example of development of the farmers association in southern Netherlands. In return visits, ZLTO branches illustrated their policy preparation, negotiations and advocacy at all organizational levels, having their guests participate in meetings and special workshops. Strategically strengthening the farmers organization in ten districts, FAD (as was the initially chosen name) achieved to organize approximately 20.000 farmers and rural women, mostly clustering existing associations. Through well directed training on leadership and election of directors at all levels, a solid organization was built. Agriterra assisted in the building up of the national secretariat with function descriptions, procedures and communication.
The relation with Thailand is well embedded in the ZLTO. Its president and several directors and employees have visited the country. Missions to the country and return visits are well covered in the (Nieuwe) Oogst, the magazine of LTO. Contributions of members are collected locally and from 2005 onwards the local branches started to contribute to the upper levels of FAD. All offices centrally and in the districts count with computerized member registrations. The building up on district level counted with the support of the government. Advocacy on the debts of farmers resulted in a major debt reduction and a strong focus on savings & credit institutions, in a fruit collaboration with the Credit Union league of Thailand (CULT) and technical advise from ACCU, the Thailand based Asian Association of Credit Unions, a long time relation of several Dutch agencies. SorKorPor as it was re-baptized, became member of the newly established Asian Farmer Alliance, born from Agriterra’s involvement with the Philippine NGO Asiadhrra. For the coming years, SorKorPor will be a frontrunner in trying to bring the focus of its activities and the corresponding development cooperation to the lower levels of the organization building strength at grass roots level.
The central lesson from this case is the force of the combination of understanding of the development context, the expertise of Agriterra’s liaison officers, in combination with the specific organizational expertise of ZLTO.
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