Improving Institutional Capacity:
Strengthening Farmer Organizations in the OIC Member Countries
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NGO and private actors
Land O’Lakes is a national, farmer-owned food and agriculture cooperative with annual sales
of more than US$11bn. Land O’Lakes has delivered training and technical assistance to and
from communities, industry organizations, producer groups, processors, input and service
providers, and marketers. Its activities span a wide range of food and agricultural industries in
more than 70 countries, as well as provide farmers with an extensive line of agricultural
supplies and services. 94
AGRA, or the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa, strives to “fulfil the vision that Africa
can feed itself and the world”.95 Its programs develop practical solutions to boost farm
productivity and income for the poor while safeguarding the environment.
One such program is the Farmer Organization Support Centre in Africa (FOSCA), which aims to
transform the lives and livelihoods of smallholder famers, especially women, by strengthening
the farmer organizations that serve them, and doing so in a sustainable and scalable way.
FOSCA engages with FOs to help identify their needs, particularly in technical and
institutional/managerial capacity, develop a supply of accredited service providers that can
meet those needs, facilitate demand-driven delivery of the services to FOs, develop and
disseminate knowledge on best practices for supporting FOs, and document evidence of FO
impact on livelihoods and economies. 96 FOSCA’s chief goal is to increase the share of farmers
belonging to FOs in Sub-Saharan Africa from the current ~10% to ~30% in 2020. To date,
FOSCA works with 2,060 registered groups and supports a total of 94,994 smallholder farmers
in target countries.
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has directed more than USD 2 billion to agricultural
development efforts, primarily in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. The foundation has a
foundational belief that collective action is increasingly necessary and that strong, transparent,
and inclusive FOs are required for smallholders to survive and thrive. Its approach centres on
addressing the specific needs of farmers, increasing farm productivity, and fostering
sustainable agricultural practices, impactful partnerships and significant collaborations. It
invests in FOs so that farmers, through collective action and self-empowerment, can overcome
disenfranchisement and improve their livelihood.
AgriCord is a cooperative network of non-governmental agri-organizations with structural
links to farmer and rural member organizations in their home countries (eight EU Member
states, Canada, Senegal and Asia). These ten agri-agencies (and four associated organizations)
support FOs in developing countries by improving both capacity building and concrete
operations. AgriTerra, Asia DHRRA, and We Effect are agencies in this network.
 AgriTerra supports s mallholder FOs in developing countries by promoting, facilitating
and supporting long-term cooperation with Dutch organizations.
 Asia DHRRA, or the Asian Partnership for the Development of Human Resources in Rural
Asia, engages rural development works and practitioners in continuous dialogue around
the challenges and responses to rural development. The network facilitates exchanges
between 11 social development organizations across Indonesia, Philippines, Malaysia,
Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, Myanmar, South Korea, Taiwan, and Japan.
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96 For example, by evaluating improvements in productivity and household income for members participating in FOs, as well
as national-scale impacts on productivity