Workshop on

ALTERNATIVES TO CORPORATE AGRICULTURE

Case Studies from Bangladesh, Cambodia, India,
Pakistan and Vietnam
Shahidul Islam
Coordinator, KHANI Bangladesh

Background & Rationale

Who is the owner of the Agriculture & Food Production
system? Farmer or Corporation?
Fostered by so called green revolution technology based
production System and associated Global policies like AoA,
TRIPS of WTO the ownership of the Agriculture going into the
grip of corporation.
The small, marginal and landless farmers worldwide are
struggling much for their survival in this corporate controlled
agriculture.
Moreover, food system into the hands of corporation is a
great threat for the food security of the millions of hungry
people.
Therefore, it is essential to find alternatives that will secure
the livelihoods of millions of smallholders.

Key Features of the cases

Case-1: Kendrio Krishok Moitree, KKM
(A Farmers Alliance of Bangladesh)
Introduction of KKM
KKM was initiated in 2005 with formation of village based
farmer organization which were associated in bigger
association in the name of Kendrio Krishok Moitree (Central
Farmer Alliance) in 2009.
Since 2009 the organization is running independently with
minimal strategic support from external agencies. KKM is a
member of Asian Farmer Association for Sustainable Rural
Development (AFA).
A total 813 village based farmer organization that represents
21,556 households were formed in 31 unions (around 25
organizations in each Union Moitree) under 10 upazilas from 7
districts of Bangladesh.
The concept of KKM is to develop farmers collective initiative
for creating social enterprise/solidarity economy as alternative
to corporate agriculture.

Major Activities of KKM

In the context of corporate control over seeds and genetic
resourcesKKM started seed business to regain farmers' control over
seeds.
Using quality seeds and producing crops through organic
management practices,
Adopting Climate Resilient Sustainable Agricultural practices
Have taken collective and mobile marketing initiative of their
homestead production.
Taken initiative for Collective grain banks from fistful of rice.
Involved diversified income opportunities like small trade,
handicrafts, nursery etc.
Practicing for individual and group level savings
Building solidarity with other national & international farmer
organizations and taking part in policy advocacy.

The learning and challenges of KKM

External facilitation & capacity building support for organizing the
smallholders.
The farmers as disadvantaged people have potential to mobilize
social capital and lack other forms of financial and human capital.
If such comparative disadvantages are overcome by external
support, the poor farmers can run the large institutions and
business.
The abrupt withdrawn from strategic partnership by the support
institutions hinders the growth.
It is evident that if the collective is large in number and function as
a large market, they can provide quality goods and services with
lower price, and be sustainable.
The Krishok Moitree is able to provide better quality seeds and a
viable alternative to corporate agriculture.

Case-2: Case Study on Collective Production &

Marketing of Kampot Pepper in Cambodia

Introduction of GI Kampot Pepper

Kampot Pepper has been growing in Kampot province of
Cambodia since long time ago which was destroyed by the
Khmer Rouge in 1975, which land and people were monopolized
in order to grow rice almost exclusively.
Kampot Pepper Promotion Association (KPPA) is an interprofessional association which established on October 08, 2008
by Kampot Pepper producers and companies who involved in
Kampot pepper value chain.
KPPA comprises of 232 members by which 215 pepper producers,
01 farmer cooperative and 16 companies/traders.
KPPA does not make any profits but its members do but take
service fee @1,000 riel/kg of Kampot Pepper for using this name
for meeting the operational cost.

Establishment of Cooperative
Kampot Pepper Agricultural Cooperative (Kampaco) a
farmer cooperative was established by Kampot Pepper
producers on February 20, 2009.
It plays very important roles in price negotiation with
partner companies/traders, collecting and selling
products of all members as well as sharing information
and experiences related to production techniques and
market situation.
This cooperative is also a member of KPPA, so all
Kampacos members are the members of KPPA.

Production, Marketing & Pricing System

Produce & Sell
Raw Products

Price set by

Kampaco

packaging
Companies
/traders

Producers

70% Sell at
International

30% Sell
at Local

Market

Market

Price is set by Kampaco, based on the calculation production

cost then negotiating this price with the companies/traders

Learning
Facilitated by the state in collaboration with
external donor agency & local NGO in
implementation.
KPPA is an organization jointly owned by the
Producers & Companies + a farmer cooperative
in-between for managing the supply.
Export oriented mono-crop based but the crop
has demand both at domestic & foreign market.
The producers have more bargaining capacity
for getting higher price.

Case-3: Case Study on Sahaja Aharam Farmer

Producer Organisation in India
Sahaja Aharam is a Farmer Producer Organisations
promoted by Centre for Sustainable Agriculture (CSA) an
NGO started building Farmers Cooperatives which are
federated into a 'Sahaja Aharam Producer Company'.
The total beneficiary population approximately includes
3000 small and marginal farmers and broadly covers 12
districts with active coverage of 112 villages in Telangana,
Andhra Pradesh and Maharastra.
Major Activities
Procurement, Storage, Processing & Marketing of Organic
Farm Produce by cooperatives and other producers
Enterprises. Production of Organic Inputs like seed,
Compost, Biopesticides etc.

Learning
Five years is a short time to make the
institution viable financially and
administratively.
Now CSA is planning to establish Farmer
Service Centres for every 4-5
cooperatives/FPOs which can provide
integrated services on knowledge, inputs,
market, administration and financials.
In the end in order to better sustain FPOs in
the long run all these components are needed
as a package to strengthen the FPOs.

Case-4: Case study on Ghaji Women

Self Help Group in Pakistan
About 200 women in 28 villages of Fateh Jang tehsil
of Attock district of Punjab province of Pakistan are
predominantly associated with kitchen gardening
through organic farming activities since 2012.
Self help group was formed for promotion of
kitchen gardening activities by adapting organic
practices and collective marketing.
It could be due to presence of Lok Sanjh Foundation
(LSF), a national organization and member of
Sustainable Agriculture Action Group (SAAG).

The Marketing System & Benefits

Collective marketing/selling of the produce that ensure
better price of the products and reduce the marketing
cost.
Collective marketing also help them to negotiate at their
own prices.
The self-help groups also sell their vegetable produce to
the LSF through their organic shop which serves as a
central trading point in Islamabad.
LSF has their permanent customers of the organic
vegetables produced by the women farmers of the Ghaji
group and other women farmers engaged in the
production of organic farming in the project area.

Case-5: Safe vegetable production cooperative

in Vietnam
Introduction of Agrarian Reform in Vietnam
Period 1955-1957: Land reform carried out.
Period 1958 1960: Cooperatives were basically established
including some credit cooperatives, buying and selling
cooperatives, supply and sale cooperatives and so on.
Thus, since late 1960, Vietnams agriculture mainly consisted of
two economic forms which were small scale cooperatives and
state-owned farms.
Not many individual small scale economic forces left, mostly
middle peasants, there were some rich farmers but also strongly
called to involve in cooperatives.
Period 1961 1975: two key economic forms existed in the
Northern rural areas: cooperative economy with full and
comprehensive collective model and state owned economy
with farms,

Period 1976 1986: A campaign for re-organizing of

agricultural production was promoted, changing the
management system from basis to socialist-based big
production by setting up agro-forestry stations and largescale cooperatives. This campaign provided unexpected
results, specifically:
Period: 1987 to now: During this period the Communist
Party of Vietnam regulated consistent and long-term
policies on multi-elemental economic, market-based
economic development put under States management in
favour of socialist orientation.
a. Farmer households were self-controlled economic units,
therefore, it required to assign lands, issue certificates of
land use right as well as determine 05 long-term land use
rights for them.
b. Gradually renewing the old cooperative model.

Current cooperative forms

Models of vertical association: In recent years, a closed model
of production, trading, processing and distribution is popular.
With this model, enterprise acts as an investor, production
organizer to apply new technologies and guarantee output
markets.
Models of horizontal association: It means association
between producers, business units with each other.
Cooperatives, new-type cooperation groups are the typical ones.
Model of cooperation groups:
Cooperation group develops very fast in recent years because it
meets demands of employees, especially the poor. This model
meets and can solve some limitations, weakness of the
household economy, such as lack of capital, tools, technologies
and experiences; helps reduce risks and improve competitiveness
as well as overcome some disadvantages of the market economy.

Safe vegetable production cooperative

Some key features of the cooperative &
recommendations
Countries should own a legal framework for
establishment of cooperatives or cooperation groups.
Regarding this point as Vietnam has developed.
Model of organizing and managing Cooperatives or
cooperation groups should come from practical resources
of the community as well as should not be inflexible.
When producing, selling products and forming value
chains for products, it requires relying on experiences,
internal resources, self-control, and creativeness of
farmers.

Safe vegetable production cooperative (contd.)

It is not necessary to have a large scaled centralized production
planning; it is also not necessary to apply a rigid management
mechanism towards product assumption and value chain
control.
It is such mechanism that shortened the product value chain
directly from producer to consumer.
Only when producer is responsible for his/her product,
trademark of the cooperatives will he/she gain the big profit.
Governmental, nongovernmental support in certifying meeting
production conditions, product quality, developing
infrastructure, branding, creating sustainable value chain,
introducing new breeds, seeds, technologies, etc, are
prerequisite conditions for cooperatives development, for each
of cooperative member to gain further interest.

General Recommendations
External facilitation is a basic requirement for the
development of farmers organization and solidarity
economy/social enterprise that need to be ensured by
govt.& NGOs.
Reform the Existing Land Tenure and Market System are
two essential issues for the govt. need to be addressed.
The support package should be conceptual as well as
material so that they could practice and get experiential
knowledge.
The support institution must continue the support unless
and until it is proven that the farmers organization and
their social enterprises are self-sustaining.
The social impact of farmers organization and solidarity
economy project must be documented.

Conclusion
There are emerging evidences of alternatives in the
countries.
In agriculture it is globally recognized that the
smallholder farmers including landless farmers are
in fact, feeding the world.
Therefore, voice has been raised globally to
establish safeguard mechanism for the
smallholders through the policy instruments
international year of family farming, VGGT & rai.

Conclusion (contd.)
The cases presented in the study are somehow monocrop based, geographical pocket specific and very
small scale except the case of Vietnam where state
intervention is very active.
State sponsored Cooperative was the key to rapid
agricultural development of vietnam.
An alternative supply chain in favour of the organized
farmers in the form of collective/cooperative or in the
form of solidarity economy could be the key to survival
of the smallholders under the regime of neoliberal
market economy.