Aquaculture farmer organizations and cluster management: concepts and experiences

5.1
ACTIONS AND SUPPORT NEEDED TO FACILITATE THE DEVELOPMENT 
OF SUCCESSFUL FARMERS’ ORGANIZATIONS
There is no universal, “one size fits all” set of interventions for supporting FOs. 
As with all development interventions, support must be appropriate for the specific 
context, circumstances and needs of each FO. Support organizations must take the 
time to listen to FO members’ needs and requirements, assess their capacities and 
motivation, and analyse the market and institutional environments before developing a 
specific programme of support in collaboration with the FO and its members. Support 
programmes for FOs should, however, still follow some general principles (summarized 
in Box 12) aimed at increasing FO empowerment, participation, autonomy, business 
competence and sustainability. These principles highlight the importance of taking a 
holistic approach (rather than one consisting of isolated interventions) and a facilitative 
approach (rather than an interventionist approach where a support organization is 
directly responsible for providing services or undertaking activities on behalf of the 
FO) to maximize chances of FO success and sustainability (Kindness and Gordon, 
2001).
Building on the factors for success identified in Chapter 4 along with the principles 
underlying a facilitative approach outlined by Kindness and Gordon (2001), four broad 
areas requiring support have been identified to assist the development of successful 
FOs: (i) training and capacity building; (ii) development of an enabling environment; 
(iii) market coordination and chain development; and (iv) access to technology, research 
and development.
 
5.1.1 Capacity building 
Building the capacity of FOs to help them implement their own strategies is fundamental 
to any FO support programme and is essential for FO sustainability and self-reliance. 
World Bank projects on FO development currently focus on strengthening FOs’ 
technical and strategic capacities. This is also an increasingly common approach for 
NGOs and donor agencies. Strategic capacity refers to the ability to develop strategies 
to meet FO objectives. Technical capacities refer to the following skills:
• functional literacy and numeracy; 
• accounting and financial management; 
• ability to run an efficient information system; 
• capacity to analyse constraints, synthesize members’ needs, set and articulate 
priorities; 

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Aquaculture farmer organizations and cluster management – Concepts and experiences
50
• ability to undertake specific activities; and 
• capacity to design, implement and evaluate an activity (Collion and Rondot, 2001). 
Penrose-Buckley (2007) identifies several key areas of FO capacity that need 
strengthening. These areas encompass the broad technical and strategic capacities 
mentioned above, but also focus on the capacities needed to undertake specific key FO 
activities. These areas include:
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• Empowering grassroots members:
- 
Increasing members’ ability to exercise ownership and control of the FO and 
keep leaders accountable is extremely important and depends on members’ 
capacity. 
- 
Members can be empowered through developing their skills in critical areas, 
including numeracy, literacy and business and marketing skills. 
• Strengthening governance and leadership:
- 
Supporting FOs to identify the most suitable rules and legal structure for their 
needs is important; however, it is of little use unless members understand these 
rules and are able and motivated to participate in decision-making (see above).
- 
Strong leadership is essential for the effective governance of FOs, and leadership 
capacity can be improved by developing the management skills and business 
understanding of leaders
• Supporting effective market research:
- 
FOs need support to develop marketing strategies that reflect members’ 
priorities and willingness to take risks and that build on the FO’s competitive 
advantage and capacity.
- 
The choice of markets and marketing strategy will affect who can participate 
in FO activities, and complementary development activities may be needed to 
ensure that poorer producers, women and other marginalized groups have the 
opportunities and capacity to participate in FOs.
• Strengthening business management:
- 
Capacity in business planning (to analyse business and market systems and 
develop realistic and sustainable business strategies) is essential for FOs to 
become profitable and benefit their members. 
- 
Many FOs fail because they do not analyse their business costs carefully. 
Thus, support is needed to help FOs develop effective business management 
systems to ensure they can meet financial obligations to members and service 
providers.
- 
FOs should try to raise some capital from members’ contributions to increase 
their ownership and commitment to the business. Support may be needed for 
poorer producers to ensure that they are not excluded by these contribution 
requirements.
- 
Support organizations can also help FOs to access funding but should avoid 
financing FOs in ways that weaken their long-term sustainability.
• Supporting improved production:
- 
FOs can increase their output in a number of ways (e.g. by increasing 
membership, raising members’ productivity or buying produce from non- 
members), all of which require additional skills and resources. 
- 
Coordinating members’ production is a key role of many FOs and needs to be 
supported through developing efficient and effective logistical systems
- 
Improving product quality is essential for FOs to access better prices, but it 
involves a range of different costs (including those related to extension services, 
quality management systems and certification) that FOs are often unable to 
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For a step-by-step guide on how to facilitate the development of these capacities, see Penrose-Buckley 
(2007), Chapter 14.

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Supporting farmers’ organizations
cover. This is especially relevant for aquaculture FOs that produce output that 
often needs to meet strict quality and safety standards. Thus, support may be 
needed to enable FOs to make these investments, but FOs must be able to cover 
these costs themselves in the long run.
• Facilitating access to market services:
- 
Sustainable access to market services is essential for FOs to conduct and develop 
their business. FOs may need support to assess the market services they need 
and to explore what market services are available.
- 
Support organizations can facilitate FO access to market services in various 
ways, including providing services directly, managing FOs’ access to services, 
coordinating FOs’ independent linkages to service providers or developing the 
capacity of service providers.
- 
The aim of support organizations should be to develop the capacity of FOs to 
access, pay for and negotiate contracts with service providers in the long term.