Farmers’ organisations need to be strengthened where they represent farmers’ own interests and where they have emerged as a result of their own, real expressed needs – not as an imposition of the State. They can then become effective channels of communication between the member-farmers, otherwise easily isolated and lacking power to affect the behaviour of agricultural service providers. However, where FO’s do not have access to diverse sources of income, where there are no core cultural or economic activities that bind their members, where the organisations do not have access to capacity-building support or where they operate in an unfriendly institutional environment (lack of supportive legislation, no formal recognition etc) they tend to be weak and unable to influence powerful actors with the needs of their members.

This is highly relevant to the SL approach to rural development, as the approach explicitly recognises the key importance of institutions and organisations to rural people for achieving positive livelihood outcomes – for example, increased livelihood security, levels of production, wealth, influence and power.

Recommendations for strengthening the processes of technology generation and dissemination in which farmers’ organisations, civil society organisations, and national agricultural research and extension services are engaged, focus on adapting policies, institutions and processes to better fit with FO members’ livelihood needs. The ability of public service providers to respond to the needs expressed by farmers through their organisations depends on the willingness of government, as well as public and private agricultural services, to engage with them. However, in order to be effective, farmers’ organisations often need:

• capacity building support in technical areas relating to agricultural production, and internal management and organisation (programming, financial management….);
• some successful economic activities – as technology generation is not normally a sufficient mobilising force for farmers’ groups – such as cash crop production or commodity marketing;
  
• access to funds from diverse sources (membership fees, access to development project and international NGO funds etc.);
• commonly accepted ethic for group interaction (either traditional modes of social organisation (FUGN, Burkina Faso) or clearly stated statutes required by law (Cameroon), or clear rules for group interaction and decision-making (sesame growers, The Gambia).