Informal structures for collective agency

Although the majority of small-scale producers are not organised in formal, marketoriented structures, most belong to traditional and or social networks that can also
serve as a channel to deal with markets. There are many opportunities outside of
formal organisations to exercise economic agency collectively and cooperate to
compete. These can be as simple and informal as neighbours agreeing to grow the
same crop to attract middlemen, or to transport produce to the market together.

On the other hand, sophisticated informal or temporary organisations are also

possible. One learning network study highlighted the case of small farmers
marketing matoke, or cooking bananas, in the kasenda area of uganda. These
producers begin coordinating their activities only at the time of the matoke harvest,
they then pool their produce, use mobile phones and networks of relatives for
market research, and appoint community representatives to negotiate sales and
handle money.

Familial networks are important for the informal marketing of matoke, and this is
mirrored in learning network cases from latin amerika. Ranaboldo's research team
studied farmers in argentina, bolivia, and peru who are marketing products with
cultural identity, using the value of difference as a strategy. A common element in
the cases is that, although the farmers are starting to target modern urban and
tourism markets, extended family and ritual kinship networks (based on
relationships such as godparents and godchildren, common in the andean region)
continue to be essential for setting up production and marketing systems. These
traditional networks organise exchanges and reciprocity of favour and
responsibilities, and they can often be more important than family relationships.
Such systems may be at least as complex and sophisticated as their formal
counterparts.

In bolivia, Tassi looked at indigenous Aymara producers whose kinship ties link them
to a trading network that extends across the Andes and dominates market in some
major cities- such as the meat market in La Paz, 90 per cent Aymara - controlled.
Among the cattle farmers studied, meat is distributed to more than 2000 butcher
shop in La Paz along pathways of kinship. The relationship among different actors in
this chain ( Aymara producers, traders and retailers) combines economics interest
with mutual trust and social policing, so that a series of verbal agreements allows
the circulation of considerable volumes of produce. Around the world, this type of

social capital is widely used by small-scale traders to overcome obstacles typical of

commodity market in developing countries: poor market institutions and imperfect
information.

In the context of weak states there may also be no institutions that can effectively
guarantee a formal contract, whereas trust-based relationship and social capital in
informal networks can be highly effective informal does not mean uncoordinated.
Far from being at arms length, informal and traditional trade is often marked with
high degrees of coordinations, based on trust based networks.

Ranabolo calls for more attention to such informal structures. This is in no way to
suggest that these networks are immune from conflict or that they are in
themselves fairer or more equitable, she writes, it is simply that their rootedness
and persistence, their ability to make dynamic internal changes to adapt to new
contexts, their widespread social networks and their power imply that they cannot
be ignored.