New federation gives 3000 Chinese farmers confidence in the future

Six cooperatives in the southern Chinese province of Yunnan wanted to launch a federation together. The aim was to become a stronger unit and to encourage more business. In collaboration with Agriterra, they came up with a vision, a mission and a business plan. This resulted in the establishment of the Xishuangbanna Menghai Federation at the end of 2015.

Agriterra helped steer the process of the federation's establishment in the right direction. Now that it exists, its members are looking to the future with confidence. The federation demonstrates a healthy sense of ambition - something which Agriterra is more than happy to work with. In the (near) future, they hope to:

• Set up organic shops with environmentally friendly products from the region
• Secure the certification of organic products
• Develop agro-tourism
• Establish their own restaurant or hotel

The federation
The request for support came from three cooperatives from the autonomous prefecture (administrative region) of Xishuangbanna. Agriterra had already collaborated with these three cooperatives from 2010 - 2015. For the new federation, three other cooperatives became involved. These six cooperatives are active in rice cultivation (2), pig farming, vegetable cultivation (2) and tea.
 
They hope to utilise the existence of a strong federation to benefit from the healthy image of products from the Yunnan region. By consolidating their energies, they occupy a stronger position in lobbying activities and a good negotiating position on the market. Furthermore, they work together to develop a better professional organisational structure with regards to branding, quality control and product marketing, amongst numerous other fields.

Agriterra added value
The plans set out by the six cooperatives are great, but they did come to face to face with a number of significant challenges. They didn't succeed in securing a bank loan, the various cooperatives offered too large a range of products and it was difficult to obtain quality labels and certificates for the organic products: a host of tricky obstacles that have been overcome with Agriterra's assistance.

Agriterra supported the cooperatives in formulating a vision for the federation's development, the creation of a business plan, and with training sessions. The result of these efforts was the establishment of the Xishuangbanna Menghai Federation at the end of 2015. The six cooperatives also supplied the capital for the federation's equity capital. They have a great foundation to build on in the future.