Management Advice for Family Farms in West Africa: Role of Producers’ Organizations in the Delivery of Sustainable Agricultural Extension Services

نویسنده

  • Guy Faure
چکیده

The emergence of Management Advice for Family Farms in West Africa is closely related to the increased integration of farmers into an open market economy. This is creating a strong demand from farmers for advisory support services, focussing on management of the farm. These should go beyond the technical aspects of farming and include the organisational, economic financial and technical implications of farm management. With the gradual withdrawal of Government from extension services delivery, a stimulating context exists for reviewing approaches and systems of support delivery facilities for producers. In response to these developments, several experiments on advisory services for family farms are going on in West Africa. Beyond the variety of objectives and implementation procedures analysed in this paper, common features and a considerable degree of consensus on concepts emerge. Strengthening the producers' capacity for assessment, decision making and management of their farms is a common objective. Differences exist between procedures for delivery of advice, methods and tools used, emphasis put on different aspects of management. All experiments stress the importance of training, enhancing group dynamics and individual learning. They are all farmer and farm family targeted. Expression of farmers’ objectives, needs and demands is essential. Advice is based on data gathering and assessment by the farmers themselves. Group dynamics is an important element in formulation of advice. Extension workers become advisors and facilitators. In all cases, Farmers’ Organisations are involved in governing delivery services, though at different degrees. In several cases priority is given towards strengthening farmers' capacity in the management of delivery at both local and global levels. Significant improvements in farm performance have been reported. However, to reach sustainability for farmers’ driven and governed advice support delivery, innovative agricultural policies and public finance are needed. Management Advice for Family Farms (MAFF) The central role of family farms The agricultural environment is evolving rapidly. Farms are increasingly linked to the market and are selling a greater proportion of their production of export crops and, increasingly, food crops and animal production for supplying a rapid growing urban population. Structural re-adjustment plans have resulted in the removal of stabilisation mechanisms (price support, subsidies, etc.) and the progressive withdrawal of government intervention from numerous support activities. New stakeholders (farmers' organisations, NGO’s, private companies) are emerging and their participation in the delivery of extension services is getting reinforced. (Schwartz, 1994). But this new context also implies increased economic risks for farmers, and accelerates differentiation between farm households and between regions. New opportunities are created through the comparative advantages from which certain categories of stakeholders could benefit from. There is need for new information and training facilities for farmers to enable them to improve their management capacity, taking into account the technical, organisational, economic and financial aspects of family farming. The diversity of situations and hence of types of producers, asks for new approaches in delivery of extension, using appropriate tools. Changing support needs, diversity of approaches in MAFF For almost a decade, questions have raised within the agricultural extension sector as to how to respond to new demands from farmers, while public resources for extension are shrinking. Different stakeholders have taken various initiatives for delivering support and advice services to farmers. For over ten years, the French Co-operation is supporting approaches that we refer to here as 'Management Advice for Family Farms (MAFF). The first experiences originated from ‘Research and Development’ projects (Faure et al., 1 Family farming is a form of production characterised by the special link established between economic activities and the family structure. This relationship affects the decision-making process, that is to say, the choice of activities, the organisation of family 1 Extension and Rural Development: A Convergence of Views on International Approaches? 1998) while some more recent experiences are based on approaches conducted by ‘farm management centres’ in France, with support from French professional organisations (Inter-Réseaux 1996). Some operations have been in existence since many years, going beyond the experimental stage, are sustainable and concern a significant number of farmers. Therefor lessons could be learnt from them based on evaluation studies A workshop intended to share experiences in management advice for family farms (MAFF) was held in Bohicon, Benin, in November 2001. The workshop organizers, together with the French Co-operation, identified ten cases to be studied. These represented different situations in terms of major farming systems concerned (cotton and cereals, purely rain-fed cereals, irrigated rice, market gardening). Before the workshop, each team involved analysed its own case with the help of an analytical framework elaborated by CIRAD. An initial analysis of the ten documents provided a good picture of different aspects concerned: methods and tools used, institutional arrangements, funding mechanisms and performance achieved by the farmers. During five days, the workshop gathered 45 participants including farmers’ representatives, extension advisors and researchers, all of them involved in one of the experiments. This differentiated audience provided different points of view and prompted in-depth debates especially when the interests of the farmers’ representatives and technicians proved to be opposite. During five workshop sessions each experiment was analysed by the participants, focusing on methods and tools, innovative practises, access to inputs and credit, the role of advisors, funding mechanisms and partnerships. At the end of each session the facilitator and the reporters drew up conclusions, which were discussed with the participants. The case studies, their comparative analysis, and the main conclusions of the workshop debates are presented in the workshop proceedings (CIRAD, IRAM, Inter-Réseaux, forthcoming). The present paper is based on these materials. Table 1 shows the variability between the different case studies in terms of themes addressed, tools and methods used, profile of advisors and type of governance. Beyond diversity, there are many similarities (box 1). Box 1: Principles of Management Advice for Family Farms: 10 Case Studies Analysed at the Bohicon Workshop (Benin), 2001 1. MAFF is a global approach that enables the farmer and his family to analyse their own situation, to look ahead, to make choices, to monitor their activities and to evaluate the results. It takes into account the technical, economic and social aspects of their activities. 2. MAFF is a capacity-building process for men and women engaged in farm management. It helps them to master its different facets: agricultural production and other income generation activities, organisation of labour, management of financial flows, etc. The ultimate goal is to better serve the attainment of various family objectives, of different order. It places the farmer and his family in the centre of the advice function. 3. MAFF is based on a learning process including training, exchange of experience, mobilisation of farmers’ know-how. It provides tools for improved decision making, including economic and economic monitoring of production, calculation of gross margins, cash flow management, etc.; hence making use of observations and measurements, which assumes farmers’ ability in calculation and writing. or paid labour and the management of the family resources. This type of farming accounts for the greater part of world agricultural production. In Africa, family farms are often complex in structure and functioning. This complexity must be specified in each case (farms based on the extended family or the nuclear family, the geography of production units, consumption and accumulation, etc.), Gastellu et al., 1997. 2 Extension and Rural Development: A Convergence of Views on International Approaches? 4. MAFF operations are set within the social network: participants and their groups are part of networks for exchange on practises and local knowledge; they are members of farmers' organisations (FO’s) and often among their leadership. 5. MAFF operations are aimed at developing farmers’ driven delivery services, with strong participation of FO’s or even governed by them; this often implicates partnerships with other actors, NGO's or consultancy firms, which could help them to become more independent from other actors like traders and banks. Procedure for building up farmers' capacities Management as a domain for learning and decision-making The MAFF procedure is aimed at strengthening farmers' ability to master their farming system and at making them less dependent from their environment. The main stakeholder, the farmer, is placed in the centre of the system. The method is based on the management concept, using: • assessment to understand how farmers and advisors perceive and represent their problems, • tools to help in decision-making, to increase knowledge and generate learning processes. In this respect, management advice is perceived as a process consisting of different phases: assessment, planning, monitoring, adjustment and evaluation. In no way it is similar of accountancy or could be reduced to a set of technical and economic assessment tools. It is not an improved version of the transfer of technology approach (Benor, 1984). However, in practice, only a limited amount of effort and time is spend on planning, whereas much time is devoted on assessment and monitoring. Sometimes tools are used that are unwieldy, like exhaustive records of farm structural elements, of crop monitoring data, income and expenditure data, etc. In most cases farm records keeping can be limited to essential characteristics and performance rates, instead of loosing the cap by too much detail. The advisor is a key person in the process, since his role is no longer to draw up assessments and propose solutions just by himself. He is no longer there for directing all (Hatchuel, 2001) but rather to promote group dynamics and collaborative learning. He has become a facilitator, a person who helps to formulate problems and to identify possible solutions. Van den Ban (2000b) clarifies this new role by calling him ‘counsellor’. We quite agree on this, though, for convenience, we will continue to use the term advisor. These requirements represent one of the greatest challenges of the approach: how to find such advisors and how to train them? 2 Management can be defined as the analysis and design of a steering system for the action organised. 3 Originaly, the translation into english of ‘conseil de gestion aux exploitations agricoles’ was ‘farm management group counselling’ (Faure et al, 1996) 3 Ex te ns io n an d Ru ra l D ev el op m en t: A C on ve rg en ce o f V ie w s o n In te rn at io na l A pp ro ac he s? T ab le 1 . M ai n ch ar ac te ri st ic s o f 1 0 op er at io ns u si ng M an ag em en t A dv ic e fo r Fa m ily F ar m s ( So ur ce : C IR A D , I R A M , I nt er -R és ea ux , f or th co m in g) M al i B ur ki na B ur ki na B ur ki na C ôt e d' Iv oi re C ôt e d' Iv oi re C am er oo n C am er oo n B en in B en in cp s/ ur do c up pm fn gn un pc /s of ite x sc ge an ap ro ca su de dp gt /p ra sa c ap ro st oc ca ge a ca dg St ar t o f M A FF (y ea r) 19 97 19 98 19 96 20 00 19 97 19 97 19 98 19 98 19 95 19 95 Li te ra cy ra te o f ru ra l p op . 20 % 40 -4 5% 25 % 29 % 30 % 65 % 30 % 25 % 33 % 30 % C en tr e of in te re st Ec on om ic X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X Te ch ni ca l X X X X X X X X X X X O th er Lo an s Fi sc al La nd T oo ls a nd m et ho ds D ia gn os tic s / in ve nt or y X X X X X X X M on ito rin g / a na ly si s X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X Fa rm p la nn in g X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X Ex ch an ge b et w ee n fa rm er s X X X X X X X X X X Te ch ni ca l e xp er im en ts X X X X X X X U se o f c om pu te rs X X X X X X In di vi du al a dv ic e X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X G ro up a dv ic e X X X X X X Pl an ne d Pl an ne d X X X X X X

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تاریخ انتشار 2003