Farmer social networks and group-organisation

Self-organisation is one of the three main components of resilience that promises greater control and influence over farm activities and farm socio-economic environments than without. Traditionally, African farmers have organised themselves into various groups and this practice has evolved to the modern, with financial institutions taking advantage of this form of cooperation to disburse credit to farmers through group liability. In some places in SSA, these forms of self-organisation are much more pronounced than in others, while in some others it is absent. Such forms of collective-ness cover activity spheres related to farm production such as finance, labour, marketing, knowledge groups, or even multi-functional farmer organisations that offer extension services.

In order to increase their access to credit and savings, farmers organise themselves in Self Help Financial Groups (SHFG). The indigenous forms of SHFG include Esusu/Susu in Nigeria and Ghana, Ekub in Ethiopia, Tontines in Cameroon and Niger, and merry-go-round/Kielo in Kenya.

The financial services that SHFG provide give farmers room to accumu-late capital, increase their livelihood assets and invest in agricultural pro-duction. With time, these traditional SHFG have evolved into formalised

forms such as Savings and Credit Cooperatives (SACCOs). In some rural areas more women organise themselves in SHFG than the men. This is because most men migrate to the urban centres to earn additional incomes while the women are left behind to cater for the farms and the household.

Through membership in SHFG women improve their access to financial services, and thereby become more empowered to venture into small busi-nesses (Seibel 2001). Some also invest the financial capital acquired in paying children’s school fees and in farm production (Ifejika Speranza 2006b). However, SHFG without links to formal financial institutions tend to collapse during crisis like those triggered by drought, as their limited funds dwindle when their members default in their contributions. Those groups that maintain linkage with formal financial institutions have a sus-tained source of savings and credit (Lee 2006). Thus linking those stand-alone (traditional) SHFG to formal financial institutions is one way of stabilising the capital flows in such groups, thereby enabling such groups to provide financial services to their members in a sustained manner. Ac-tors in development cooperation like CARE, Oxfam and IFAD have sup-ported over 500,000 self-help groups in Africa to achieve greater rural outreach and to sustain their financial services (Lee 2006).

Farmers also organise themselves into labour groups to reduce the labour burden in farm work, for example, the Mwethya and Mwilaso groups in south-eastern Kenya. Mwethya is a group comprising relatives, friends and neighbours called upon by an individual who needs help with a definite short-term task, while Mwilaso traditionally consists of a group of friends who work on each other’s farm on a strictly rotational basis (Tiffen / Mortimore / Gichuki 1994; Ifejika Speranza 2006b). However, such forms of group formation are disappearing with farmers now engaging in paid contracts for such jobs.

Natural resources users and management associations are in forms of Water Users Associations (WUA), irrigation management associations, forest users groups or fishery committees (Liniger et al. 2005; Neubert et al. 2007). As climate change reduces resources availability, efficient man-agement of resources is one way to adapt to the impacts of climate change-induced resource scarcity and periodic resource abundance (for example, floodwater from torrential rains). Resource scarcity triggers tensions and conflicts among resource users. In the case of water, local communities

ability and access. The WUA have emerged out of the need of locals and government to improve resources governance. Thus in countries like Kenya and Tanzania, WUA help to diffuse tensions and resolve conflicts over water use. In Kenya, the WUA was formalised by being incorporated into the Kenya Water Act (GoK 2002; 2006), and giving the WUA the role to monitor water rights and distribution as well as to resolve equity issues and conflicts. Since their inception, such groups have resolved various conflicts and disputes over water (Liniger et al. 2005; Neubert et al. 2007).

Government and other external actors drive group formation, thus provid-ing them with the leverage to address gender inequality in the management of irrigation schemes. Neubert et al. 2007 report that women were consis-tently underrepresented in water user groups and in irrigation projects, necessitating the World Bank to introduce a system of quotas designed to increase women’s participation. This increased the empowerment of women in their communities.

Marketing associations and cooperatives are not so successful like farmer organisations in other sectors. Compared to other sectors related to farm production, the marketing sector is the one area where farmers are not well organised in many African countries. The various cases of corruption and mismanagement of farmers' cooperatives (for example in Kenya) have made farmers wary of marketing organisations (Ifejika Speranza 2006b;

Neubert et al. 2007). Consequently, traders continue to exploit farmers through low prices for produce and livestock, while the high costs of transportation to markets hinder farmers from directly selling their pro-duce in the market. Thus, governments and development cooperation need to support the farmers by rebuilding trust amongst them by creating an enabling environment that enforces checks and balances as well as trans-parency, accountability and penalty.

Many farmer organisations have diversified into providing multiple ser-vices for their members ranging from extension to weather-based index insurance. Examples are the Uganda National Farmers’ Federation and the National Smallholder Farmers’ Association of Malawi. Such organisations have emerged to represent farmers’ interests and facilitate their access to extension services. However, such organisations tend to represent the interests of the small-farm businesses of innovative farmers. In this sense, poorer farmers may be left out.

Contributions to resilience to climate change:

Taking the components of resilience as analytical frame (see Table 4), the following section discusses how farmer organisations increase resilience and how development cooperation can support these processes.

Contributions to ecological resilience

– The WUAs contribute to protecting the environment by monitoring the equitable distribution of river water for various uses.

Contributions to economic resilience

– Establishing links with formal financial institutions has been one way that the SHFG adapted to the challenges of insecure funding base.

Some have even gone further to diversify their activities – in addition to providing farmers access to credit, they now also provide farmers with weather-based index insurance as well as improved cultivars and high value seeds.

– The success of many formal micro-finance schemes depends on the basis that SHFG provide through local leadership, local social capital and governance (Lee 2006).

Contributions to social resilience

– Through self-organisation, the farmers themselves have ownership of the group formation process and define their own agenda, contrary to cases where the agenda is externally driven.

– Through cooperation the farmers increase their social capital, and their access to information, and through exchange with other farmers and their own experiences learn about new developments.

– As a member of a group, farmers gain the capacity for collective action or joint enterprise (WRI 2008), and through their group/organisations become a social force and actor that shapes development. This contributes to social capital and in effect to buffer capacity.

By facilitating access to livelihood capitals (financial services, technical information), farmer organisations play a critical role in increasing buffer capacity (to deal with risks, shocks and uncertainty) and by extension

capacity for learning) and is equally self-reinforcing. It forms the basis for networks and institutions, which again reinforce self-organisation.

Through participation and networking the farmers gain new tools to sur-vive (that is increase their social capital; WRI 2008). By recognising the limitations of their organisational form, and linking up to formal rural finance and credit institutions (see Chapter 5.7), SHFGs have led to their own transformation to hybrids of the traditional forms (characterised by client proximity, flexibility, social capital, outreach to poorer clients), and to modern forms (characterised by risk pooling, provision of long-term investment loans). This linkage and adaptation demonstrate the resilience of self-organised groups (Zeller 2003). Self-organisation is thus a powerful tool for increasing farmers’ adaptive capacities. However, while self-or-ganisation may be an endogenous process, there may be strategic roles for external involvement to support this process. Depending on how external actors like development cooperation act, they can impede or facilitate these processes (Lee 2006).

With climate change, farmers will need to acquire new knowledge on the management of new crops and dealing with unaccustomed weather/climate conditions. In addition, the expected trend of rising agricultural prices means they will need access to cash and going by the current procedure of group-liability by the rural finance institutions a poor farmer will have to be a group member to be able to source such credit. Finally, it needs to be mentioned that badly-managed farmer groups have also undone positive contributions to resilience through mismanagement of funds and sowing mistrust among members. Rebuilding trust should thus be the goal in such situations.