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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