Taking Action for the World’s Poor and Hungry People

Beijing, China October 17-19,2007

How to Foster Organizations for and with Small-scale Farmers

By

Prof. John Joseph Otim (PhD)

President Agricultural Council of Uganda and Senior Advisor to H.E President Museveni, Uganda

Benefits of being organized

• Sustainability• Influence policies/laws that affect them.• Strong motivation for participation and cooperation • Flexibility and bargaining strength.• Empower to form strategic Alliance with supply

chains e.g. Supermarkets.• Get fair share of market prices in value chain

system.• Engage in bulk marketing of produce and inputs

purchase.• Undertake contract farming/out growers schemes.• Provide foundation for sound democratic

governance.

Types of Small-Scale Farmers

1. Poorest of the Poor Subsistence Farmers Production goals: (i) meeting survival

needs and (ii) provision of social safety net.

2. Economically Active Low-income Farmers

Production goals: (i) meeting domestic food needs, (ii) social safety net and (iii) sale of

surplus to raise income (iv) diversification of investments

Uganda Experience: Agricultural Sector Programme Support (ASPS) 1994 -2009

Phase I: 1994-2003• Empowering the Poorest of the Poor using voucher /

cash for work / village savings.• Mobilisation of sensitised small-scale subsistence

small-scale farmers to form groups.

Phase II: 2004-2009• Fostering the Economically Active Low-income

Farmers Organisations (FOs):(i) Building technical skills and capacity for

good governance.(ii) Agribusiness Development for

Profitability, Sustainability, Lobbying and Negotiations.

Business Support Services (BSS) to FOs• Hand on training in

agronomic and livestock management best practices, demonstrations and general advisory services.

• Training in agribusiness: business management skills, record keeping, enterprise selection, profitability analysis.

• Access to farm inputs.

• Mobilising members for group marketing, providing market information and linking farmers to markets.

• Encouraging farmers to save own money and borrow from own savings under Village Savings Scheme.

• Sensitising on HIV/AIDS Malaria and Gender issues.

• Sensitising on Environment Management.

Partnerships among Service Providers

• Objective:

(i) Create synergy for success, (ii) Increase productivity, (iii) Increase share of marketed production (surplus)

• Public: FOs, NAADS, Local Government

• NGOs: Africa 2000 Network, Care, Sasakawa Global 2000, World Vision.

• Private: Mukwano Enterprises, PRIDE (Micro-Finance)

• FOs: Farmers organisation

Impact assessment• Changes in skills and

technology adoption.

• Changes in profitability and income levels

• Changes in financial and institutional capacity of FOs.

• Changes in access to socio-economic amenities.

• Changes in gender, social-network, and diversification.

Table 1: Availability and use of agric. resources

Agricultural resource % reporting available

% reporting use of input

Improved seeds 83.7 72.4

Improved breeds 42.4 33.9

Organic manure 76.4 55.2

Fertilisers 55.4 22.6

Pesticides 70.3 42.4

Herbicides 63.7 32.4

Agro-processing facility 51.1 44.4

Hand hoes 96.9 88.5

Ox-ploughs 41.3 34.2

Water for livestock 85.5 74.0

Figure 1: Adoption of agricultural technologies and skills

34.7 35.8

42.7

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

40

45

2003 2005 2007

Year

Ad

op

tion

rat

e (%

)

Figure 2: Changes in farmers’ agricultural production, sales, profitability and income

65.568.5

52.3

31.327.3

3.2 4.51.7

46.0

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

Value of output Sales Profits

Change

Per

cen

t o

f fa

rmers

Increase Decrease No change

Table 2: Farmers’ responses on ease of accessing socio-economic amenities

Amenity Ease of access

Percentage of farmers reporting

Before support After support

Land Easy 35.2 56.4

Difficult 64.8 43.6

Good clothing Easy 31.8 78.5

Difficult 68.2 21.5

Improved housing Easy 32.9 67.7

Difficult 67.1 32.3

Health facilities Easy 33.5 68.3

Difficult 69.3 31.7

Clean drinking water Easy 35.2 69.1

Difficult 64.8 30.9

Transport services Easy 35.9 63.3

Difficult 64.2 36.7

Credit facilities Easy 15.7 51.4

Difficult 84.3 48.6

Table 3: Financial Capacity of FOs to deliver BSS (sustainability) as Service Providers

District 2003 2004 2005 2006

Soroti 3.3 48.3 65.8 76.6

Mukono 5.1 10.7 12.8 25.2

Apac 5.7 6.5 9.6 51.7

Tororo na 18.4 30.6 4.4

Lira 26.1 33.1 25.4 28.0

Kisoro 14.3 14.2 26.2 21.5

Mbarara na 89.5 86.1 83.5

Iganga 3.7 2.2 1.6 1.5

Bushenyi 15.8 41.4 29.3 33.6

Masindi 15.4 33.9 24.1 50.3

Gender and Diversification of Investments• Initiation of other income

generating activities using incomes saved (80.8%)

• Reported improvement in gender involvement in production activities (80.4%)

• Improved social networking among farmers (76.4%)

• Improved appreciation of farmers groups (77.7%).

Critical Success Factors • Political will and commitment by Governments.

• Favourable Policy Environment.

• Adequate infrastructures.

• Coordination Mechanisms for Strategic Alliance

• Institutional innovations

• Support from international community.

• Public-Private Partnership including with CSOs and FOs

• Adopt Participatory Approach.

Challenges still faced by Small-scale FOs • Limited facilitation to mobilise and reach member farmers.

• Low savings culture and lack of capital.

• Failure to pay membership fees.

• High input prices.

• Farmers’ attitude towards group work and marketing.

• Distorted farmers’ expectations due to handouts by some NGOs and government.

• Rivalry among Service Providers.

• Absence of efficient coordination mechanisms.

• Lack of marketing infrastructures.

• High dependency on donor funding.

• Inadequate interventions by governments.

• Inability of FOs to lobby governments.

Community Road Constructed using voucher / cash for work model

Thank you!