Indonesia: Empowering Rural Producers Organization

By Robin Bourgeois, Franck Jesus, Marc Roesch, Nena Soeprapto, Andi Renggana, Anne Gouyon. May 2003. Report prepared for the World Bank by CIRAD.

Experience around the world shows that active and genuine farmers organisation have played an essential role in the modernisation of agriculture, in the respect of farmers rights, in the capacity to voice their needs and negotiate with other stakeholders, all finally contributing to increase the welfare of farmers and reducing poverty in rural areas. In Indonesia, as pointed out in the first report, rural producer organisation development is mostly at a mushrooming stage. Not surprisingly rural poverty is still an acute problem; a strong farmerbased agriculture is still in the making, farmers' rights are still largely ignored and farmers' voice and negotiation power frequently denied. However, collective farmers initiatives flower more and more, sometimes successfully, sometimes to be crushed.

The report identifies several conditions that have to be fulfilled to provide a propitious environment for the emergence and development of RPOs:

- Building self-confidence and awareness;

- Sharing experience to build common plans;

- Acknowledgement of RPOs role and importance;

- Access to services;

- Experiences and knowledge on RPOs for RPOs;

- Meeting opportunities with other stakeholders;

- Legal support.

Full report available for download here