Supporting self-organisation in farmer organisations in developing countries

Abstract

Governance through self-organisation in which participation is essential has been acknowledged to be important to enable farmer organisations to perform their roles in a sustainable manner. This paper focuses on empowering farmer organisations in developing countries to self-organise their governance to deal with encountered challenges. To this purpose, a co-creation approach was implemented with a group of farmer groups located in a horticultural production centre in Indonesia. In multiple co-creation sessions organised over time, the need for a new form of governance was identified, solutions proposed, (partially) implemented, evaluated and adapted. The results show that: 1) through co-creation, farmer organisations in developing countries can be empowered to self-organise; 2) self-organisation facilitates farmer organisations to learn to adapt to change; 3) self-organisation increases the commitment of farmer members; and 4) decentralised governance is a promising solution for growing farmer organisations.