Aquaculture farmer organizations and cluster management: concepts and experiences

6.2
CONSTRAINTS AND CHALLENGES 
This review has highlighted the many constraints and challenges facing small-scale 
aquaculture producers in today’s liberalized and globalized markets. It has also 
highlighted an important strategy for small-scale aquaculture farmers to respond 
effectively to these challenges, namely the development of FOs. This section highlights 
some of the key constraints and challenges currently facing the development, operation 
and impact of small-scale aquaculture FOs in developing countries.
Collective action and FOs are not able to solve all the challenges faced by small- 
scale producers, especially those related to structural issues such as gaps in the market 
for services that are not being filled by the public or private sector. Even though FOs 
have an important role to play, group approaches in themselves do not provide an easy 
institutional response to the pressures facing small-scale producers in a liberalized 
economy and should not be seen as a universal strategy to address the challenges 
currently facing small-scale aquaculture producers. The following are the key 
constraints and challenges facing the development of small-scale aquaculture FOs. 
6.2.1 Targeting poor farmers 
An important challenge facing FOs is their limited ability to involve and benefit poorer 
and subsistence farmers. Poorer farmers may not have the technical and entrepreneurial 
capacities needed to effectively participate in a group, such as basic numeracy and 

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Conclusion
literacy skills. They are more likely to be risk averse than more commercially oriented 
small farmers, and they also may not be able to produce a reliable surplus that meets 
market requirements for quality. They may also lack the resources needed to meet 
membership requirements such as membership fees. As such, FOs are usually unable 
to be of much direct benefit to poorer farmers, and business-oriented FOs may not be 
the best approach for targeting such poor farmers.
Further, the poorest small-scale producers often live in deprived and remote
18
areas 
and face thin markets. FOs will find it extremely hard to succeed in areas that are remote 
and/or areas with limited market development and low levels of service provision. In 
these cases, where more fundamental changes have to be made such as establishment of 
infrastructure or a minimum level of input, output and/or service market development, 
small farmers will be unable to benefit from marketing interventions, as more basic 
needs must first be met. Also, as suggested in Chapter 5, the trend in marketing 
approach adopted by development organizations has moved towards a more business-
oriented, facilitative approach, and this may be less likely to succeed in remote rural 
areas than in less remote, higher-potential areas. Ultimately, in poor remote areas, FOs 
will find it extremely difficult to succeed and may not be the most appropriate strategy 
to help poor farmers.