Dear all,
We are receiving a LOT of input from you, on the different questions. Keep them coming!

We can not re-send each individual input to the entire e-conference list, otherwise most of you will (rightfully) complain about too many emails.
So, I am “aggregating/summarizing" your input, combining different emails into one.
Each aggregated input email will have a title like “Q1.1/2”+plus short summary of content. “Q1.1/2” means this is the 2nd aggregation email on question “1.1”.
Please feel free to add input, agreement, disagreement, further illustrations to any of this input — just send it to [log in to unmask] clearly indicating which question this relates to.

Ready? Ok, here we go, with the first aggregation on topic “1.1 - What are different experiences of small farms’ cooperation in your regions? How has this changed over the past 10 years?”

1/ Probably a good way to help framing this question, a view from India:
From: Dr.Mahesh Chander <[log in to unmask]>

When we say "Small farm cooperation", do we include in this cooperative farming? Small farmers may not be part of formal cooperative structure yet often cooperate with each other in many farming operations. Cooperative farming totally failed in India though once envisioned as good for agricultural development  especially to improve efficiency of small farms.
I guess we will be discussing here about how small farmers help each others by sharing resources on mutual basis - and over the years whether it has improved or weakened, and future prospects of such interdependent cooperation among small farmers.

Facilitator's input:
Indeed by “small farm cooperation”, we don’t just mean formal cooperatives, but also informal cooperation at any level (purchasing input, irrigation, planting, harvesting, processing, marketing…) - From the background document: "(Cooperation) occurs in a variety of ways, ranging from informal collaboration with relatives and neighbours at times of high workload (e.g., hay harvesting) to farmer associations where farmers purchase production inputs, process primary products (like farmer-owned dairies) or market their produce together".
We would definitively like to hear more from your experience on "formal" cooperative farming in India, an excellent topic to bring into the discussion during this e-conference. But there might be more: When I was last in Bihar (North India), farmers told me how they worked together in a government-led cooperative banking system, including a cooperative credit system (and in which they also talked about a possible a crop insurance formula, run by this cooperative banking system)

2/ A view from Cameroon:
From: E.S. Njieassam <[log in to unmask]>
My name is Eyongetta stanley Njieassam. I am an agricultural researcher from Cameroon with interest in sound agricultural practice and sustainable livelihood in rural communities .

On question 1.1:
Small farm cooperation experience over the years has been carried out through family relationships or friendships between two or more households. It mostly take place during the summer holiday periods where children are on holidays and which is the cultivation season. Here each household is mostly represented by mother and adult children who get into an "njangi" with either a next door neighbour or family friend or relative where they jointly work in each others' farm at a stipulated number of hours. The idea is to put a labour force that can work in each persons farm. The activities carried out in the farm could include either clearing of bush, hoeing, planting, harvesting, weeding and the benefiting household provide just food and occasionally drinks for the labour.
Today cooperation has emerged into "societies" youth groups and big meeting groups in rural communities some made of only females or males and other made of of mixed sex but of individuals of similar age range whose objective is to provide labour in exchange for money in order to run their activities in the group and to be able to celebrate the end of year/cultural festivals with money raised through such activities. This has helped to increase the size of farm and reduce stress and cost to farmers who wants to extend the size of their farms and has also help to transform peasants farming into plantation agriculture

3/ A view from Ghana
From: Solomon Elorm Allavi |Syecomp Ltd <[log in to unmask]>

Hi, my name is Elorm and I work with Syecomp, a remote Sensing company in Ghana.

My observation is that small farm owners tend to collaborate a lot in most rural communities in Ghana. Most small farm owners are members of community farmer unions and tend to share information on training and financing opportunities. However, I've also realised some prevalent elite capture (editor: “the momentum?”) thus preventing the full development of small farms.

Numerous cooperatives have been set up in Ghana over the past decade. Due to ease of registering Farmer Cooperatives and interest by development actors and Government of Ghana's agricultural policies, lot more small farm cooperatives have sprung up to derive union benefits. However, most are structurally weak and (the) majority are now dormant in the absence of any external technical and/or financial support.

Additionally, some large commercial farm operators have taken it upon themselves to set up small farms cooperation so they can easily establish a better supply chain for their products. This seem more sustainable than donor-driven small farm cooperatives.

(In the bigger picture): Not much has changed over the past 10 years with regards small farms in Ghana. Even with numerous donor support, there's marginal impact and small farms remain stagnant.

4/ A view from Senegal:
From: El Hadji Ousmane Ka <[log in to unmask]>

In the zone of Niayes (Ed: North-West region of Senegal) the exploitations are organized around an organization named AUMN (Ed: AUMN: Association des Unions Maraîchères des Niayes- see https://www.upadi-agri.org/association-des-unions-maraicheres-des-niayes-aumn/). This organization brings together
more than 300 farms. This organization helps farms on a lot of things:
- Find subsidized inputs of quality and quantity
- Find financial and technical partners
- Facilitate the flow of products before and after harvest
- Defend the interest of producers
This organization made it possible to have several partners like PADEN (Ed: PADEN : Programme d'Aménagement et de Développement - see http://www.paden-senegal.org/ ) — It trained and sensitized many producers on the misuse of pesticides but also the importance of local products for food security.

Humanity needs more production and avoid waste to feed itself in order to cope with food insecurity. Exploitation must play first and
foremost the biggest role.

Facilitator's input:
Ousmane: could you give some more information on how AUMN was set up (for instance, is it a cooperative, set up by the government?) - and from what you see: what have been the main advantages and challenges to make AUMN work, in your opinion?




########################################################################

To unsubscribe from the SMALL-FARMS-L list, click the following link:
https://listserv.fao.org/scripts/wa-fao.exe?SUBED1=SMALL-FARMS-L&A=1