Plenary Discussions
On the principles and foundations of agro- economic undertakings and enterprises. Underlying LSFM engagements is the commitment to the principles of holistic, diversified, and sustainable agriculture as the foundation of any and all economic undertakings of small farmholder commodity associations. The basis of their engagement with various players, especially the business/private sector, remains the same as the fundamentals guiding our advocacies for agrarian reform and rural development-- that is, social justice, environmental protection, sustainable agriculture.
On the primacy of village organizations in terms of viability and exacting accountability: Consolidation assumes that village level organizations are viable; it is difficult to consolidate if the basic organizations are weak. Even as the direction is to federate, there should always be the consciousness that accountabilities continue to be directed by the base organizations. The farmer groups must gain and earn instead of the top layer of industry federations. There are always problems at the higher up level. Therefore, federations cannot be market consolidators. The main goal should always be to make the small farmer groups viable and competitive.
On the constraints and challenges presented by the existence of industry associations: Any changing environment can be seen as both a difficulty and an opportunity. There will always be areas of conflict between the supplier and the market consolidator. Thus, a mediator will be necessary. In the end, what’s important is how we are able to make community-based agro-enterprises earn because we cannot depend donors all the time.
On the way to organize engagements at the ASEAN / regional level: Will the viability of regional level engagements depend on consolidating work at the local level? How can the work on commodity consolidation be brought to the ASEAN level? A good start can be the identification of countries where market demands exist. For instance, JPEPA is detrimental to the Philippines but if there are demands in Japan for some of the country’s agricultural products (eg. muscovado), it might be possible to argue for a bargain. If we can show the government that there is a market and that a certain commodity is important as far as trading is concerned, the possibilities for a negotiation might open. Rather than start at a purely advocacy level, it might be work better to demonstrate our point from a trading relations perspective.
On the implications of commodity-based approach to farming practices. Commodity-based organizing does not mean encouraging our farmers to go into mono-cropped farming because our advocacy has always been diversification. Commodity-based clustering is just an approach to consolidate products to achieve enough volume and scale to gain a space in the market. It is possible eventually envision having this kind of consolidation to the regional level. The form does not really matter—what is important is to have a mechanism that can effectively move the products from the farm to the market. Commodity-based organizations can do this function better than multi-issue/multi-croup farmer groups.
On the implications of commodity-based approach to farmers’ federations: PAKISAMA, for instance, has envisioned the evolution of its existing provincial federations into a confederation of commodity-based groupings. The national level will become a confederation of provincial confederations taking on the nature of a movement that tackles multi-issue advocacy functions, while the provincial confederations become the service delivery mechanisms at the base-PO level and addressing marketing functions, if not inter-trading commodities among themselves as is already practiced in some of our areas.
