Aquaculture farmer organizations and cluster management: concepts and experiences

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Structure, operation and management of farmers’ organizations
3.4.4 Training
In addition to extension training, many FOs provide training in literacy, numeracy, 
basic accounting and report-keeping, to help members manage their own business 
activities better and improve the capacity of members to run the FO effectively. For 
example, members of NaCSA’s shrimp farmer societies are trained by NaCSA in pond-
book record-keeping, which is important for good pond management and meeting 
market traceability requirements, among other things.
3.4.5 Quality control
To meet increasingly strict quality and food-safety standards of some markets, FOs 
may need to monitor and control the production process and the quality of the final 
products they sell. For example, the NaCSA’s shrimp farmer societies, the Samroiyod 
Shrimp Farmers Cooperative and the FOs that form the ALSCs in Aceh, Indonesia, 
have all established BMPs to ensure higher-quality products and have set up internal 
control systems (ICSs) to ensure adherence to these practices and standards (e.g. in 
the case of organically certified societies in India). Increasingly, experience is showing 
cluster management to be an important and potentially successful way for groups 
of small farmers to ensure better quality and safer produce and overall responsible 
and sustainable aquaculture farming. The ability for aquaculture FOs to monitor the 
The CBOs have open membership, regardless of socio-economic status, provided that 
members follow the regulations; however, those involved in agricultural activities are given 
priority membership. The CBOs are democratically run and managed by their members 
through an elected executive committee. They are non-profit organizations, and the 
majority of earnings are used for the further development of services for the community. 
They have also come together to form the Greater Noakhali CBO Association (GNCA), 
the apex body of CBOs.
It is estimated that between 2002 and 2006, nearly 8 000 farmers were engaged in prawn 
culture in various culture systems, covering a total of 1 266 hectares and benefiting many of 
the poorer households in the region. By 2006, over 25 percent of women-headed households 
were culturing prawn, and cash income from aquaculture had risen by over 300 percent and 
contributed over one-quarter of their total income.
Through the project, it was found that horizontal expansion of low-input systems has 
considerable potential for other parts of Bangladesh but requires a total system approach 
involving all stakeholders in a specific geographical area, namely a “regional integration 
model”. Such a model requires the organization of small farmers into community-based 
FOs for service provision and for representation of farmers with private-sector partners. 
Such a model also offers scope for system certification and traceability to ensure the ability 
to comply with international market standards. Building such a total system, however, 
involves a lengthy process of capacity building with the local stakeholders.
The GNAEP had the advantage of donor funding to develop its system, but donor 
projects need to “stay the course” for an adequate length of time to ensure the sustainability 
of their capacity-building activities. Moreover, all the efforts in the controlled environment 
of the project can be thwarted by the operation of the policy environment, and international 
attempts to offer certification for small farmers must be based upon a proper understanding 
of the realities of the variation in small-farmer systems and the feasibility of adhering to the 
standards set.
Source
: Alam and Demaine (2008).

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Aquaculture farmer organizations and cluster management – Concepts and experiences
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quality of members’ produce and regulate themselves through mechanisms such as 
cluster management and ICSs has led to an increasing number of aquaculture FOs 
achieving certification. For example, two of NaCSA’s farmers’ societies have been 
organically certified, and the Samroiyod Shrimp Farmers Cooperative in Thailand 
is on its way to having some of its members’ produce being Fairtrade certified. The 
challenges surrounding certification for small-scale aquaculture producers along with 
the potential for group certification are outlined below (see Box 9).