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.