Prologue

The farmers’ movement is in motion. Farmers’ organisations from developing countries are marching in and will go and demand there legitimate role on the world stage. We are witnessing an important moment in time, that might change the world drastically. Remember farmer delegates from developing countries and OECD countries gathering in Geneva at the eve of WTO negotiations in December 2008. Whereas the official delegations made piecemeal progress on the issues of market access to OECD markets and the right to close developing countries’ markets for imports, the farmer delegates came to a consensus on their positions. According to a Dutch farm leader a world trade agreement was at reach in a parallel session with farmers delegates and proved the power of organised farming.

The situation in which farmers throughout the world are able to really influence the negotiations of bureaucrats and politicians is of course still a dream to come true, but an important hurdle in order to eradicate hunger and poverty is on the verge of being taken. Farmers are getting organised from grass-roots level to regional level and even in international federations. These organisations represent the people who are ready and able to feed the world. And in this organised shape these 1.2 billion farmers at grass roots level can have a say in the fora that matter.

Fair enough, we still have a long way to go. But there is reason for optimism. International leaders and institutions finally come to recognise the importance of agriculture as key area to develop if you want to ban hunger and poverty from this world. There seems a will to spur up investments in agriculture dramatically, uplifting the downward trend in support for agriculture since the 1970s. World leaders promised 22 billion for agricultural development during the G8 in Italy in 2009.

What makes them think that this time, their support could pay off? The main difference with 30 years ago is this new trend, the increasing organisation of farmers in developing countries. The World Bank report 2008 talked about the mushrooming effect of farmers’ organisations. Agriterra calculated for the Bank that 19% of all 1.2 billion farmers was organised in 2007. By 2009, membership of farmers’ organisations in Africa increased to 25%. After years of development and strengthening, they are now present at national and international negotiation tables and fora or taking the streets when doors remain closed. They claim their place when fair and effective food policies need to be decided over. They want to play their role when it comes to increasing food production and modernising agriculture with services for input supply, processing, trade, banking and insurance.

The farmers’ organisations are not yet all equally strong or big enough to voice their needs on national or let alone international level. A lot still has to be done to transform them into the powerful machines that consolidate the voices of the poor and provide the services and support to the individual smallholders, men and women. But they all have the promise to exert a greater influence than ever before. In Africa we witnessed the foundation and expansion of important farmers’ unions in Kenya, Benin and Congo. We saw them integrate into five regional bodies, who are in their turn on the verge of establishing a Pan-African federation. Other regions are consolidating and expending, though at a slower pace than Africa. The farmers’ organisations from developing countries massively invaded the International Federation of Agricultural Producers (IFAP). With all these developments going on, soon the face of farming will change. A new agricultural revolution is taking place, this time not related to machines, chemicals or research, but simply due to the fact that organised farmers direct the change.

There is money and there are farmers’ organisations. Now it is time to bring the two together. As we will demonstrate in the following report AgriCord has been working in support of these developments by strengthening farmers’ organisations. Our programme Farmers Fighting Poverty delivered great results. Farmers, especially females, participated more massively than expected. Even with back donor contributions falling short of expectations, the programme still meets most of its original targets, thanks to decisive action of the implementers in the field, the farmers’ unions, their associations and cooperatives, and above all the more than 4 million participating farmers and farm leaders.

We would overstate our case if we attributed the above described developments exclusively to the efforts of the agri-agencies, but we are sure that we have contributed to this important motion and are ready to do so for many more years to come. We did so by making the right choice: bringing the money to where the actors are. We recommend donors to do the same.

Kees Blokland
managing director of Agriterra