Morisson Rwakakamba

A contributed editorial

Our aims were to share first-hand experiences on how national farmers’ organizations have identified and used research evidence to formulate feasible, evidence-based propositions for changes in policies and institutional arrangements that empower smallholder farmers and their organizations in local, regional and international markets and share key lessons learned through the ESFIM processes.

Steve Muchiri, Eastern Africa Farmers’ Federation (EAFF) chaired the event in which over 40 persons representing Farmer Organizations, International Agencies, NGOs, and other programmes, participated. Three of the ten National Farmers Organizations who currently partner in the ESFIM programme shared their experiences. Lorenzo Castillo, Coordinator, Junta Nacional de Café (JNC), Peru, (Castillo_Legislación Cooperativa y la Tributación Agraria en Perú – final) began by explaining how a lobby agenda had been developed by a group of farmers’ organizations engaged in collective marketing, led by the Junta Nacional de Café (JNC), and their subsequent participation in the multi-stakeholder platform on agricultural policy – La Convención Nacional del Agro Peruano (CONVEAGRO). He explained how evidence-to-policy support helped to refocus CONVEAGRO to address key issues that affect smallholders access to markets including: the reintroduction of VAT on transactions of members sale to the cooperative; administrative hurdles that prevent access to government procurement for school feeding programmes; access of farmers’ organizations to regional investment funds; and policies that define quality parameters and enable marketing strategies that differentiate on product qualities. Raul Montemayor, Free Farmers Federation Cooperatives, Inc. (FFFCI), the Philippines, (Montemayor_ ESFIM Rome Feb 2012) outlined how ESFIM supported the participation of farmers in the design of a national Agricultural Commodity Exchange System. He summarised progress on the establishment of the national system and outlined how ESFIM had strengthening farmers’ participation in its design and future operation through a baseline survey in key maize-producing area, an exchange visit to Africa to share lessons on the operation of Agricultural Commodity Exchange Systems, and the design of training tools tailored to the needs and capacities of farmers’ organizations and cooperatives as well as small-scale maize traders. John Mutunga, Kenyan National Federation of Agricultural Producers (KENFAP), (Mutunga_ESFIM-IFAD Farmers Forum-KENFAP-Kenya -Final Version) shared the process of undertaking a critical assessment of government interventions in input and output markets under the National Agricultural Accelerated Input Access Programme (NAAIAP). Specifically, the use of a voucher system for subsided maize seed and fertilizer and its impact on yield and on farmer income. Based on this work, KENFAP proposed changes to the NAAIAP policy through the preparation of a memorandum to the Government on food insecurity and sought to strengthen mechanisms to improve smallholder produce marketing through the use of the Warehouse Receipt System (WRS) and contract farming. Giel Ton, AGRINATURA & LEI Wageningen UR, the Netherlands, (Ton_ Final_ESFIM presentation – Farmers Forum 23 February 2012) completed the formal presentations with an overview of the challenges and opportunities in linking research evidence to policy processes of farmers’ organizations from the viewpoint of the ESFIM research partners. He drew on the lessons learned from ESFIM’s work in Africa, Asia and Latin America in support to farmers’ organizations.

The participants then offered other experiences and shared relevant information including on related initiatives where ESFIM may wish to partner and contribute. They was emphasised that: evidence based on sound research is one key to enabling and strengthening the legitimacy of farmers’ organizations as they strive to be equal partners in the policy discourse; there is a need to create the new spaces, structures and frameworks for enhancing farmers’ organizations led research – advocacy linkages; and whilst in some cases the issue may be common between countries – the policy solutions may differ. Farmers’ organizations and governments want local or relevant evidence to inform what is feasible in their own contexts. The ESFIM experiences of process and method are seen as invaluable by many partners including other national and regional farmers’ organizations and development partners. Steve Muchiri in closing the session thanked the speakers and welcomed the rich discussion that followed the presentations. This reflected the interest and relevance of such work and he noted that “Research must change to meet the needs of farmers’ organizations – the work of the ESFIM programme is now the beginning of such work”.

Nonetheless, opportunistic behaviour tends to be usually present at one point in time in the life cycle of any cooperative. Since this opportunistic behaviour is often a source of tension and threat to the survival of the cooperative, it calls for designing specific approaches and institutional arrangements that can curb or reduce their occurrence. If they do occur, similar strategies are required to eliminate or reduce their impacts on the farmer organization. In this chapter attention is focused on a number of intervention or innovative strategies for coping with that behaviour. We try as much as possible to classify them in a form that can serve as input for database or web creation.

Side event organized by AgriNatura and the ESFIM project

Thursday, 23 February 2012 – 14:00-16:00

Oval Room B

Background

Farmers’ organizations (FOs) have a key role to play in advocating for change in policies and institutional arrangements to ensure that such policies and institutional arrangements meet the needs of their membership. However, farmers’ organizations often lack access to the information and evidence needed to develop pro-active proposals for change. In addition, the link between farmers’ organizations and national and international research is often weak, with a lack of research results on topics that matter most to farmers’ organizations and their members.

This side event presents the experiences emerging from the Empowering smallholder farmers in markets (ESFIM) programme. Through collaboration between national farmers’ organizations, local research providers and members of the AGRINATURA consortium, the ESFIM programme seeks to support and foster a research-advocacy interface that generates demand-driven action research supportive of policy activities that farmers’ organizations have themselves prioritized. 

Objectives of the event

The objectives of the side event are to:

• share first-hand experiences of national FOs on how they have identified and used research evidence to formulate feasible, evidence-based propositions for changes in policies and institutional arrangements that empower smallholder farmers and their organizations in local, regional and international markets
• dialogue with participants on the key lessons learned through such processes: what works well, what works less well, and why
• discuss how such processes might be strengthened and scaled-up.

Expected outcomes

The expected outcomes include:

• raised awareness of the value of farmer organization-driven, research-based evidence in policy and institutional change at the national level
• shared experience on key policy initiatives to empower smallholder farmers in markets
• deepened understanding of the challenges and opportunities of linking farmer organization-driven research and policy advocacy
• drawing out of key recommendations on how to enable research to better support the advocacy agenda of farmers’ organizations.

Agenda

Chair: Stephen Muchiri, CEO, Eastern Africa Farmers’ Federation (EAFF)

Presentations: (60 minutes)

Three country case examples will outline the evidence-to-policy process and the experiences of the farmers’ organizations themselves, what they did and how evidence contributed to policy or institutional change in favour of the smallholder; and a final presentation will provide a perspective from the research partners.

• Strengthening farmers’ organizations’ advocacy platforms on smallholder development issues: addressing cooperative law and taxation in Peru

Lorenzo Castillo, Coordinator, Junta Nacional de Café (JNC), Peru

A lobby agenda has been developed by a group of farmers’ organizations engaged in collective marketing (rice, alpaca wool, coffee, cocoa, potatoes), led by the Junta Nacional de Café (JNC), for inclusion in the strategy of the multi-stakeholder platform on agricultural policy – La Convención Nacional del Agro Peruano (CONVEAGRO). This agenda helped to refocus CONVEAGRO to address key issues that affect smallholders access to markets such as: the reintroduction of VAT on transactions of members sale to the cooperative that they self-manage; administrative hurdles that prevent access to government procurement for school feeding programmes; access of farmers’ organizations to regional investment funds; and policies that define quality parameters and enable marketing strategies that differentiate on product qualities. ESFIM provided research support to document relevant case studies on these issues, and supported JNC to lead a successful multi-year advocacy strategy. The presentation will focus in particular on the evidence-to-policy process relating to cooperative law and taxation.

• Developing institutions with an eye on smallholder interests: the Agricultural Commodity Exchange System in the Philippines

Raul Montemayor, National Manager, Free Farmers Federation Cooperatives, Inc. (FFFCI), the Philippines

ESFIM supported the participation of farmers in the design of a national Agricultural Commodity Exchange System. Such a system seeks to bring together buyers and sellers to trade through registered brokers and as such the system provides both opportunities and challenges in particular for the smallholder farmer as well as the small-scale entrepreneur. This presentation will present the process and the work undertaken which included a baseline survey in key maize-producing area, an exchange visit to Africa to share lessons on the operation of Agricultural Commodity Exchange Systems, and the design of training tools tailored to the needs and capacities of farmers’ organizations and cooperatives as well as small-scale maize traders.

• Bringing evidence of policy impacts on smallholders to the policy makers: the case of input and output markets in Kenya

John Mutunga, CEO, Kenyan National Federation of Agricultural Producers (KENFAP), Kenya

With support from ESFIM, KENFAP made a critical assessment of government interventions in input and output markets under the National Agricultural Accelerated Input Access Programme (NAAIAP). Specifically, KENFAP examined the use of a voucher system for subsided maize seed and fertilizer put in place by NAAIAP and its impact on yield and on farmer income. Based on this work, KENFAP proposed changes to the NAAIAP policy through the preparation of a memorandum to the Government on food insecurity. KENFAP further sought to strengthen mechanisms to improve smallholder produce marketing through the use of the Warehouse Receipt System (WRS) and contract farming.

• Challenges and opportunities in linking research evidence to policy processes of farmers’ organizations: the viewpoint of research partners

Giel Ton, Programme Manager, ESFIM programme, LEI Wageningen University and Research Centre, Netherlands 

Building on the preceding presentations, this presentation will draw together some of the wider challenges and opportunities in linking research evidence to policy processes of farmers’ organizations and some of the lessons learned from the work of ESFIM in over ten countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America in support to farmers’ organizations.

Open discussion: (50 minutes)

Conclusions: (10 minutes): Felicity Proctor, Consultant to the ESFIM programme

Closing remarks: Stephen Muchiri, CEO, Eastern Africa Farmers’ Federation (EAFF)

In 2004 CIOEC submitted an intitiative Law for the legal recognition of OECAs, filed on September 1st National Congress, with support from the Ministry of Agriculture. It aims to achieve legal recognition of OECAs and promote their development through production, processing and / or jointly marketing of goods and services.

After years of stagnation this ‘OECA Act’, initially by the political upheaval in  Bolivia in 2004 and 2005, and, from 2006, as a result of the Constituent Assembly that had priority and was considered as an alternative pathway for the OECA Act to be approved.. approved priority, work done in 2007, 2008 and achieving approval in 2009. CIOEC re-introduced the initiative during the consultations about the Ley de Revolución Productiva Comunitaria 144 in 2011.
In this framework, the CIOEC Bolivia decides to table discussion of the OECAs Act and seek approval for adoption in 2012. One of the main strategic lines of work of the CIOEC-Bolivia since its creation is the impact on public policy. In this framework, with the support of AGRITERRA (Dutch institution), it has initiated participatory process of formulating public policy proposals for the benefit of small farmers, through the workshop “Participatory Process of Policy Generation (PPPG)” CIOEC formulated its core focus for ESFIM in a workshop 25 to 27 October in La Paz, with the participation of national leaders, departmental and sector organizations and technical staff. This workshop identified the need for the approval of the Draft Law on OECAS, with emphasis on the regulation of the constitution, organization and organizational functioning of the Rural Economic Organizations (OECAs) and tax rules (special rules for OECAS).