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Tue, 20 Mar 2018 18:01:34 +0000
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Dear all,

aggregated input on question “1.1 - What are different experiences of small farms’ cooperation in your regions? How has this changed over the past 10 years?”

1/ From: George Madoda <[log in to unmask]> (Tanzania)

My name is George Madoda, I work for Aid for Trade logistics as a policy analyst under the department of International trade and agriculture development

For the past 10 years small farms were facing challenges in terms of manure, urea and pesticides, the products were expensive in such that (the farmers) were not able to purchase them, as days goes on the government decided to remove tax on urea and machines so that they may be able to produce as much as they can and find markets
Now they are encouraged to form local organizations such as cooperatives that are now working to help them increases crop production at village level. These small organizations represent them to defend their rights and negotiate with companies that buy their products and this has now causing changes and transforms their system of farming, we learn from cases from cashew nuts in Mtwara.

2/ From: Mayank Jain <[log in to unmask]> (India)

My name is Mayank Jain. I am from India. Manufacturing Engineer by degree with 6 years of experience working across technical research and social and solidarity economy. Cofounder of MicroX Foundation (a not-for-profit based out of Bihar and Delhi). Work with agrarian communities for economic value creation and poverty alleviation through sustainable recurring income model. I want to fix the broken food system. Fellow at Global Social Economy Forum. Exposure to Indian, Israeli & South Korean Ecosystem. Visit http://www.sumarth.org    Reachable at http://www.linkedin.com/in/mysticmayank

I have worked with farmers in South Bihar as well as in Jalpaiguri, Northern part of state of West Bengal. Irrespective of the geography, I think we should be very clear with the fact that agriculture apart from being a lifestyle also happens to be a business and there are many people who are dependent upon it entirely for their livelihoods. Till the time a cooperation among farmers [formal or informal] does not result in economic value creation (particularly in case of formal) or savings (both in case of formal/informal)]; it would never be fruitful.

Formally, Small farm cooperation have transitioned from being a cooperative to Farmer's Interest Groups to Self-Help Groups to Farmer Producer Organisations (as facilitator pointed out in the first post giving example from Bihar).

Cooperatives
Sadly cooperative model failed in India or let's say it did not get much gestation period it was required. It could be attributed to following reasons:
a. Appeasement to all
b. No economic value creation
c. Capacity building was not done the way it should have been (wide gap between policy and implementation/execution)

SHG's (Self-Help Groups) mostly focused on women. Both government as well as non-government organisations worked on this concept.
SHGs in most of the cases became source of saving monthly a little bit amount that could be credited to any of the member at time of need to sustain their livelihoods. I found it very innovative tool personally. but it also failed barring few who started some income generation through small ventures like animal rearing, mushroom etc. Probable reasons:
1. As a group, communities never came together. They remained individualistic.
2. Enterprise creation was never a vision or economic value creation was seldom an emphasis.
3. Most of the loans that were disbursed they were taken in lieu of clear the farm debt or as a credit for farm inputs. It became a source of an alternate way of taking a loan.
4. SHGs mostly focused on women but they were mere puppets and worked according to wishes of the family
5. Entreprenurial mindset wasn't nurtured
6. Market access and quality check remained a bigger question even if ventures were started.
7. enables gathering of women; but platform seldom results in anything apart from discussing credit/savings etc.

Farmer Interest Groups (I have seen most of the FIGs made by government institutions). It was a moderate success on informtion sharing and pooling of resources but suffered due to lack of economic value creation
- trainings were facilitated through these
- but adherence to trainings were never checked, hence the flaw
- marketing issues were not sorted out

FPOs also suffer through capacity building of insitution. Professionalism hasn't been achieved in the working. I would also attribute it to the corruption that prevailed at end of local partner level which totally ignored developing capacity. While they were able to save a little bit on bulk purchases but the glorious goal of economic value creation still remained a distant reality.


Informal Cooperation
Here cast system and gender also plays very pivotal role, as per my observation.

In Kurmi cast (traditional hindu agricultural caste) - one can see it as a family farm as well as there is healthy competition among the members/neighbors. They also follow barter system and contribute in each other farm by voluntary labor thus saving on direct labor cost.

In case of Bihar upper caste women (Bhumihars) will seldom go out to work in the fields, though they may help with tasks that can be done in the family compound (winnowing, seed selection) or around the homestead (looking after kitchen gardens). In contrast, it is generally acknowledged that women from poor peasant households (Kurmis etc.) spend between 12 to 16 hours a day on work

Also, where women farmers are running the show, I have seen more harmony and cooperation in the farm work.

3/ from: Innocent Azih <[log in to unmask]> (Nigeria)

My name is Innocent Azih, an Agricultural Economist (B. Agric (Crop Production, UNIVERSITY OF AGRIC, MAKURDI Nigeria and M.Sc in Agricultural Finance, University of Nigeria), and currently a PhD student in public policy. Am based in Lagos, Nigeria as a Consultant in agriculture and climate change. Am the founder/ president, Center for Agriculture and Climate Change.

In Nigeria, small farms cooperation is largely insignificant if at all existing. The era of World Bank/ADPs (ed: ADP: Agricultural Development Programs) actually gave an impression or false hope as farmers believed they build enough capacity by gaining access to extension. The inability of state governments to sustain the scheme, without a replacement, has not excited in farmers the need to congregate.
So associations in the sector are largely seen among bigger farms who can influence the market through, and not small/ family farm operators. So in the last 10 years, farmers still remain price takers in the weak market facilitated by traditional offtake mechanism and the benevolence of intermediaries (such as development interventions) for capacity.

4/ From: Mare Addis <[log in to unmask]> (Ethiopia)

I am Mare Addis. I am now a PhD student at Addis Ababa university in
the field of Environmental Planning. I am a university lecturer. In
the previous time I was working in the ministry of agriculture from
district level to zonal level as an expert and team leader at
different years.

Small farm holder farmers have their own mechanism to do their farm
activities. The small farm holder farmers can cooperate with each other.

Their mechanisms are one is getting help from their neighbor, from
their own kids, from their relatives, and the main means they use  is
exchanging their (labour) for example:
The whole working group in one village assembles and works together one farmer's farm activity and the
next day for the other farmer's farm activity in their group
member and then continues like this to the every next farmer.

First they arrange their turn in sequences before they start to (work) together.
Then they continue according to their turn or sequence.

Actually they treat oldest farmer's activity  first. When they are working together,
they can get high motivation to do every activity within a short period
of time but if they tried to do it alone, it takes so much time.

They can also cooperate with each other in economic ways. For example, most
of the farmers here (have) problems in the rainy season: During rainy
season (June to Sept) farmers will get food shortages then during this
time, the farmers who have some surplus produce can lend to the poor(er farmers)
to pass the hunger time and even they also lend them seeds during the
seeding time.

So, small farmers have a good cooperation.
They can also cooperate with each other when they construct their houses. Even they can lend money (to each other so that) the poorest farmers get a better property.

5/ From: Sergiu Didicescu <[log in to unmask]> (Romania) —
(Ed: slightly beyond the topic of “cooperation", but still very relevant, i think)

Many of the farming areas of the EU suffer from disadvantages of fragmentation where economies of scale are harder to achieve. Especially in poorer regions with high unemployment and ageing farming populations where other economic opportunities are pulling people off the land and out of rural communities’ small farms are in rapid decline.
Significant “knowledge gaps” still exist in our understanding of the agronomic and socioeconomic dynamics of small farms. Compared to high intensity farming systems relatively little research has, for example, been undertaken on improving the performance of the small-scale farming systems and certainly insufficient attention has been given in the past to the fostering of cooperation and innovation as a process to enhance their productivity, profitability and sustainability. In addition, in Eastern Europe many farmers reject cooperation, due to a lack of true cooperative tradition and negative experiences with forced cooperation during socialism.
The EU’s rural development policy tries to overcome these challenges through specific support. For example, the co-operation support measure offers opportunities to bring farmers and a broad range of other people together by covering the organisational costs of the cooperation.

6/ From Dixon Olaleye <[log in to unmask] com> (Nigeria)

My name is Dixon Olaleye. I preside over the Institute of Agriculture and Adult Education of the Youth Competence Center in Nigeria.
Since 2011, we have engaged a combination of both urban and rural based youths on small scale farming production. Just recently, we were about delving into large scale farming production. I have therefore synthesised basic points of our experiences of small farms and how this has changed over the past 10 years.
The points are:

1. EVERYBODY WANTS TO EAT BUT NOBODY WANTS TO FARM
Its alarming…  Nobody wants to farm. Small farms and farmers cooperation is disappearing. Seldomly, we find households having a small garden at back of their house. Putting together over 100 young farmers some years back and engaging them in farming production, now we have less than 30 of them on the farm. Lack of access to agricultural funding and loans is disenchanting farmers from farming. We want the food on the table (food security) but we don't want our hands on deck to do the farming.

2. LAND IS CHEAP, LABOUR IS NOT
Hiring labour is quite expensive. Despite the availabilty of cheap land for cultivation, the labour involved is not cheap. Taking care of the labour is expensive. It's discouraging (to the) establishment of small farms and food security.

3. MODERN CENTURY, CRUDE PRACTICES
(The use) of crude implements and lack of modern techniques has brought great limitation to small farms operation and growth.
We can therefore do more to make small farm sustainable by:
1.Empowering small farm holders
2. Look after every worker
3.Make crops more efficient
4. Rescue more farmland




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