How to enhance small-scale maize farmers' associations
Small-scale farmers hold a crucial role in alleviating poverty in Kenya. However, the farmers have faced a myriad of challenges because the vicious cycle of poverty keeps recurring. Farmers face a challenge of high input costs, risks, and uncertainties occasioned by unpredictable weather patterns. After farmers have overcome these challenges, they face another challenge: getting markets for their products. At this point, middlemen take advantage of farmers’ predicaments and thus buy the products at a low price. The middlemen set the prices that are favorable to them but not to the small-scale farmer.
This problem is rampant where farmers are not organized and working in SACCOs or community-based organizations. In areas like Trans-Nzoia (a maize growing reagion), one will hardly find farmers registered in maize associations. This has been a big disadvantage for maize farmers. Coffee- and tea-growing farmers have strong organizations that fight for their rights, trying to get them good prices for their produce. In as much as the farmers in these sectors still feel their efforts are underpaid, maize farmers, on the other hand, do not have collective bargaining for their products due to a lack of SACCOs or registered farmer CBOs. What needs to be done to have farmers in maize-growing areas have SACCOs like those of coffee or tea? What steps would NGOs and government institutions take in maize-growing areas to ensure farmers have registered SACCOs?
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Farmers working in groups/SACCOs can enjoy economies of scale from different quarters. They can get farm inputs at a lower price when supplied in bulk. There are many organizations that give incentives and financial support to farmers, and it is easier for such organizations to work with groups of farmers than individual farmers. Therefore, the question still remains: how can maize-growing farmers form and sustain strong associations that would fight for their rights? Is it politics at play that prevents these formations or lack of farmer know-how of the importance of farmers’ associations?