Aquaculture farmer organizations and cluster management: concepts and experiences

3.4.2 Production services
FOs often provide extension services and technical advice and training. The Samroiyod 
Shrimp Farmers Cooperative employs an extension worker, and the NaCSA’s farmer 
societies employ a society coordinator for each society. FOs can also provide access to 
equipment (such as water quality testing kits in the case of NaCSA) to help members 
increase their productivity and improve the quality of their produce.
3.4.3 Financial services
FOs can facilitate access to cash loans and input credit, as it is easier to negotiate 
credit with banks as a group rather than individually, especially if the group is legally 
registered. The Samroiyod Shrimp Farmers Cooperative has successfully negotiated 
input credit for its members, which is one of the main reasons the majority of members 
joined the organization.
BOx 7
Case Study 4: Community-based organizations of the Greater Noakhali 
Aquaculture Extension Project
The Greater Noakhali Aquaculture Extension Project (GNAEP) was established in 
Bangladesh in 1998 and was funded until 2006 by the Danish International Development 
Agency (DANIDA). The goal of the project was to improve the lives of the poor fish 
farmers in Bangladesh by promoting improved and sustainable aquaculture cultivation 
practices, specifically for prawn farming, given its high value, export market potential and 
suitability for poor farmers with small ponds.
The project was based around community-based organizations (CBOs) established by 
local farmers to offer sustainable extension and other services to prawn farmers to fill the 
gap in government and private-sector service provision resulting from limited resources 
and relative isolation. The GNAEP saw the CBOs as key to the sustainability of the project 
through their role in helping to ensure input supply and market access for prawn farmers, 
as well as serving as a channel to express community demands. The GNAEP provided 
support to build the CBOs’ institutional management capacity and networking skills, 
enabling them to establish and maintain linkages with different service providers, local 
government institutions and the private sector in order to explore service provision for 
their communities. For example, CBOs have now built partnerships with private-sector 
hatcheries and feed suppliers, enabling them to buy inputs and distribute them to members, 
earning profits by selling on commission (for example, the hatchery pays the CBOs 
7 percent commission for its services) or selling at a marked-up price. Some input suppliers, 
especially the prawn hatcheries, provide a percentage of their production as credit-in-kind 
to the poor households recommended by GNAEP. These supplies are also channelled 
through CBOs with the same commission agreement. These input supply arrangements 
ensure farmers can access good-quality inputs at fair prices at the same time as supporting 
the financial sustainability of CBOs. At present, at least 60 of these CBOs located in Greater 
Noakhali are active in supporting the prawn farming activities at the community level. 
Around 24 of these are engaged in seed distribution and around 50 are engaged in fish and 
prawn feed trading.

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