Bangladesh
Using community radio to enhance farmers and fishers’ capacities
Organic dried fish production ensures income & reduces health risks
Sri Lanka
The Story of Lanka Farmers’ Forum
The history of Lanka Farmers’ Forum (LFF) draws back to the project implemented through the Medium Term Cooperation Programme (MTCP) which is supported by the International Fund for Agriculture Development (IFAD). MTCP started as a pilot project in 2009 with farmers organisations in Asia and the Pacific. The main objective of this programme is to strengthen small scale national farmer organisations and to create a powerful network among them in order to provide improved services to their members and engage in policy processes.
In Sri Lanka, this network was named Lanka Farmers Forum. The project was implemented by Movement for Land and Agricultural Reform (MONLAR) as the National Implementing Agency (NIA) in Sri Lanka. MONLAR is a member of La Via Campesina.
During the first phase, MTCP I, the first tasks were identifying the FOs in the country and profiling and networking with them. As a result, 2,100 Sub National Farmer Organisations (SNFOs) were identified and selected for the programme. However, due to the limited capacities of the programme, the working districts had to be limited to 9 and a total of 400 farmers organisation.
The second phase, MTCP II, was initiated in Sri Lanka in September 2013 followed by the gains from the completion of MTCP I. The programme linked with 345 SNFOs that accounted for 21,969 individual farmer members expanded in 9 districts in Sri Lanka by June 2019.
LFF, the national platform (formulated under MTCP) of the SNFOs which encompasses the presidents of District Farmers’ Forums (DFF) of the 9 district level platforms has been strengthened during the period of the programme implementation providing capacities for them to deliver improved services to their members and engaging in policy advocacy to develop and improve farmer friendly public policies and programs with a gender mainstreaming perspective at all the levels.
Impact Stories
- Kandy coffee flourishes thanks to women farmers
- Food production by vegetable dehydration
- Production of traditional tomato in Dodamkumbura gets a boost
- Indika Somasiri: From living in isolation to becoming a woman farmer leader
About MTCP2
The Medium Term Cooperation Program Phase 2 (MTCP2), a five-year capacity building program supported by the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC), and the European Union (EU), has been implemented in 19 countries across three sub-regions—Southeast Asia, South Asia, and the Pacific—engaging 1,544 sub-national farmers organizations (FOs) with a total membership of around 22 million farmers. The funding support (total budget of $ 5 million for the whole duration of the project across 19 countries) serves as a catalytic fund that will allow FOs to enhance their capacity to be effective channels of economic services to farmers. The program has contributed to the formation of strong national platform of FOs with improved capacity to engage in policy processes and mobilize resources from mainstream agricultural development programs like extension services, credit, and pre and post harvest facilities. The program also helped in transforming farmers associations into commodity-based cooperatives to strengthen the role of small-scale farmers within an inclusive and sustainable value-chain. The program is being implemented by the consortium Asian Farmers’ Association for Sustainable Rural Development (AFA) and La Via Campesina (LVC).
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