Improving Institutional Capacity:
Strengthening Farmer Organizations in the OIC Member Countries
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As indicated above, the state of FOs across the OIC is reasonably strong where data is available,
with in total 55% of countries with data having at least 20% of farmers in FOs or at least
5 FOs per 10,000 farm labor force. Regional differences are relatively minor, at least in light
of the sample size, with 57% of Arab countries with data being in the strong / very strong
category, compared with 63% of African and 43% of Asian countries. However, the lack of
data is a significant issue, with 43% of countries missing national-level estimates.
2.1.3. Market structure
The second broad question analyzed through the cross-country study was whether the market
structure in a given country broadly favors the existence and development of strong farmer
organizations. Market structure is a complex topic, involving questions of typical marketing
arrangements, the number and size of important buyers and traders, and the impact of
regulations, and differs from crop to crop even within a given country, and this paper is not
intended to explore the full range of questions pertaining to the structure of agricultural
markets. Instead, it focuses briefly on two topics that illustrate the central issue of market
structure: the power of farmers (and in turn the organizations they belong to) relative to
other important actors in the agricultural value chain. The two topics that highlighted here
are:
 The presence of an independent apex body for farmer organizations, which can act as a
source of leverage for farmers and FOs, giving them relatively more power and facilitating
their successful growth. On the other hand, an apex body that is controlled by the
government may not be nearly as useful in this regard, and may in some cases be harmful.
 The presence of a government-run marketing board in the most important crop in a
country, as boards like these have in various cases in the past served to weaken the
relative power of FOs. The presence of an independent or private marketing board is also
noted, as these organizations may perform valuable sector promotion tasks – although
their role may also be less benign if they exert significant power over buying and selling.
The research findings are presented below.
Is there an apex body for farmer organizations, and if so, who controls it?
Apex farmer organizations – which can be either federations of smaller farmer organizations
or national-scale unions of individual farmers (some of whom will also be members of local
farmer organizations) - play important roles in farmer organization strengthening. As
discussed in the case study on the Zambian National Farmers’ Union (4.4.1), due to their size
and national stature, they can be conduits for policy advocacy and dialogue with government,
and can also be effective at linking farmer organizations to other important agricultural actors
such as inputs providers, buyers, and sources of finance – where, again, their size allows them
to exercise leverage in negotiations with organizations that would otherwise have much more
power than individual farmers.
However, the control of such farmer organizations is also important. As discussed in Section
4.3.1 one of the most important principles for the successful functioning of a farmer
organization is autonomy and independence. Government-controlled apex farmer
organizations can stifle the voice of the farmer and, in some cases, cause the provision of
services to become more of an exercise in political patronage than a widespread effort to uplift
farmers. As an example, consider the case of Uganda, where co-operatives were strongly
government-linked in the post-independence era. However, as the ILO notes, “With political