Under current local and international market conditions, small-scale producers, who are numerous and scattered, have to contend with dominant players (traders, local and international intermediaries, agro-industries, supermarket centres, etc.) who control the agricultural raw materials supply chain. The absence of national policies in favour of rural regions in the South and the growing domination of agribusinesses and supermarkets in distribution, with their high demands in terms of volumes, standardisation and traceability, exacerbate this situation of exclusion and under-exploitation of peasant farming.
Against this backdrop of widening inequalities between the world’s agricultures and the exclusion of peasant farmers, AVSF’s objective is to strengthen the capacity of producer organisations in the South to participate directly in conventional markets under conditions that are more favourable to them, and to position themselves on alternative markets that are sometimes better adapted to the specific characteristics of peasant farming.
Producer organisation is the main way of increasing farmers’ involvement in the agricultural and agri-food sectors, capturing greater added value from their production and enabling a fairer redistribution of the wealth created. It also makes it possible to ensure that farmers are representative and is a tool for defending their interests, by negotiating more favourable policies at local, national and international level. At local level, producer organisations can become direct interlocutors with local authorities and play a key role in defending family farming and the future of rural areas as part of the decentralisation processes underway in various contexts.
Capacity building for producer organisations therefore remains one of the association’s main cooperation objectives. The methodological guide produced by AVSF on the basis of its experiences in cooperation and those of its partners, presents a conceptual and methodological reference framework to inspire the construction of capacity-building programmes for producers’ organisations. It also offers a range of methodological and training tools that can be used by those involved in developing sectors and regions. This guide, originally published in November 2014, has been updated and expanded.
