| description |
 FFA-AP is the Federation of farmers' organisations in Andhra Pradesh India. It represents 1850 farmers' associations on the local level spread over 14 (of the 22 districts). Current membership is about 69.000 farmers.
The present project submitted to Agriterra comes down to:
1. productivity enhancement including training activities related to agricultural products like paddy and pulses, horticulture, animal husbandry, sugar cane, mango, fisheries, vegetable farming (agricultural production).
2. Networking of producer organisations, commodity groups and cooperative concept (institutional strengthening)
3. Gender in farming; activities especially focused on the inclusion of women farmers (note: FFA-AP has submitted a separate project poposal for funding the establishment of a womens wing (08ff-8234)
4. Partnerships and market linkages (market and chain development)
5. Lobbying for favorable policies (institutional development at state/national level) (...less...) |
| final results & observations |
The number of producer organizations affiliated to FFA in the state has gone up from 1800 to 1912. The payment of membership fees of Rs. 300 per year per group was started this year, as well as charging service fee from individual members for trainings etc. A total income of about € 5.575 from membership fees was realized. Paddy, pulses, sugar cane and mango Commodities Interest Groups were strengthened. Tobacco CIGs formed in association with ATMA. 16 cooperative concept meeting held in districts in Vegetables; horticulture; chillees; turmeric; sugarcane etc commodities; trained the farmers on preparing bye laws; electing office bearers etc.
In the field of productivity enhancement many trainings were conducted for farmers for paddy, dairy, sorghum, sugarcane, mango and tobacco. Productivity/ income enhancement should be achieved through a.o. the use of improved seeds, SRI techniques, better storage/packaging facilities, pesticide management. FFA-AP reports an increase in paddy production of max. about 33% and a reduced input costs/labour input. For sugarcane and milk production, FFA-AP could not yet provide quantitative figures in terms of change in production. income of farmers. For the third year Coca Cola company is procuring mangos from Chittoor MACS, with an estimated 12-16% extra benefit for the farmers compared to traditional marketing. Post harvest technologies have resulted in an enhanced income between 12 and 18% (grading, storing etc.). FFA-AP indicated that monitoring on results and outcome is still weak and considers it a challenge to formulate good indicators to measure concrete results and outcome in future programmes.
Partnership of Commodity Groups with Industry and Retail chains for market linkages: All the MACS in Chittoor got registered. Two village resource centres established in Nellore and Guntur districts instead of planned 5 VCRs. FFA-AP could not manage funding (third parteias0 for more VCRs. Individual farmers have no interest in the high tech services provided by VCR, but FFA-AP is convinced about the added value of VCR.
FFA-AP was active on lobby and advocacy programmes at state level like Paddy commodity committee representation to the government; Tobacco state level meetings; state level workshops on agri marketing; horticulture and space technology meetings; Paddy Minimum Support Price enhanced to Rs. 980/- State level budget meetings held and State level Bankers meetings conducted.
At national level FFA called upon national level consultations on Agri component in Budget.
FFA has held its annual general body meeting, published several publications in newspapers, participated in regional an national TV programmes; videos on farmers issues produced.
In total 34.366 persons have directly participated in the activities organized by FFA-AP of which 10.604 (31%) are women.
Opinion projects officer:
FFA-AP is working on many issues for farmers at state level. It is not easy to judge how Agriterra’s financial support is exactly contributing to the achievements reported by FFA-AP as many of the programmatic activities are funded by third parties. FFA-AP has several other donors/projects and all progress is reported. FFA-AP managed to increase the membership and is maintaining the membership database, but still fails to include the individual members in this database which is considered as a serious delay. It is positive that the organization is now serious in membership contribution and service charges. The net income realized is still low, being about 2,6% of the total expenditures of FFA-AP. Project progress is ok, although it is difficult to judge the quality of the work delivered.
The support to FFA-AP will be changed in the coming years. Agriterra will gradually reduce its financial contribution, as it is believed that FFA-AP should be able to increase its own income and attract more and other donors. At the same time, Agriterra will reduce its organizational support and finance specific activities only and a smaller part of overhead/salaries. Till now, Agriterra has been paying most of the salary and overhead costs, being almost 40% of the total project budget and almost 60% of the Agriterra budget. It is believed that other donors should also pay their share in organisational costs.
(...less...) |
