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Farmer Capacity Building

Development Services. Farmer Capacity Building. What works? Michiel Kuit 11 May, 2010. Introduction. Innovative solutions for a sustainable agriculture require innovative farmers Innovative farmers require capacity building to maintain a “sharp edge”

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Farmer Capacity Building

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  1. Development Services Farmer Capacity Building What works? Michiel Kuit 11 May, 2010

  2. Introduction • Innovative solutions for a sustainable agriculture require innovative farmers • Innovative farmers require capacity building to maintain a “sharp edge” • This presentation synthesizes key findings from numerous projects where capacity building has played a role and highlights approaches that have proven to work • This presentation has 2 sections: • Successful capacity building approaches • Cases

  3. Organisational Dev. Enhanced profitability Farmer Field School What to do Farmer Field Book Effects of what I did Sustainable Farming Finance Means to do it

  4. Cases • Vietnam • Small scale Robusta farmers • FFS, FFB, organisational development, Utz • Peru • Small scale Arabica farmers • FFS, FFB, organisational development, multiple certification

  5. Peru • Small farmer groups for FFS, focusing on agronomic issues • Daily record keeping (FFB) by 67 farmers • Cooperation created the trust needed to merge into larger farmer organisation of 266 members • Strong embedding in local structures • Utz certification with project support • Critical success factors: • Intensive training (on average 23 contacts) • Participatory nature of training contributed to restoring trust in fragmented society • Downplay expected benefits in advance • Sufficient time (change takes time) • Excellent farmer organisation management • Excellent project team • Duration: 2003-2007 • Ubiriki valley • 265 farmers • Farm size: 6.14ha • ~700Mt green coffee (top quality)

  6. Farmers moved from mainstream to higher paying niche markets (fair price, fair say) Market access and quality changed significantly, resulting in major price changes More efficient production (cost reduction of ~30%) Incomes increased by ~30% Farmer organisation highly effective: 3 more certificates without project support 100% of coffee sold as certified Organisation builds up equity and attempts to provide financial services Peru - outcomes

  7. Vietnam • Emphasis on FFS, small groups, intensive contact • All farmers kept FFB records and records are used as a training tool (not only to demonstrate compliance) • Frequent training contacts • Combination of trainers and farmers to provide training • Strong involvement of local gov. and research institutions (eg shared management responsibility) • Focal areas: agronomy, entrepreneurship and certification • Critical success factors: • Start with general topics and move to more controversial ones • Participatory nature of training • Balanced intervention strategy • Strong embedding • Excellent project team • Duration: 2007-2009 • Gia Lai province • 800 farmers • Farm size: 1.5 ha • ~3,000Mt green coffee (mainstream quality)

  8. Vietnam - outcomes • Farm level: • Costs for fertiliser, irrigation and labour reduced by 21%, 38% and 33% (and farmers know it!) • Yields increased by 1.6Mt to 3.8Mt/ha (national average around 2Mt) • 75% of farmers certified Utz and 4C • This project is one of 5 in Vietnam • Through their success various stakeholders (gov, industry, banking) now cooperate in a very ambitious sector development program (e.g. FFS for half a million farmers) • Amongst others, a focal point will be to develop farmer organisations that can take care of members’ needs without or with limited outsider support • Sustainable agriculture programs should NOT prescribe a defined set of practices and policies • Without farmers having the capacity to take (part of the) initiative up-scaling becomes too costly

  9. Food for thought • Long-term nature of interventions • Costs • Buyers needed to stimulate process

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