Entrepreneurship

Farm Business 
School: a curriculum-
based approach to 
extension aimed at 
building farmers’ 
entrepreneurial 
capacity.
Learning is recognised 
as a process that 
requires time for skills 
to be developed

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106                                                  
Entrepreneurship in farming
Producer 
organizations can 
make a tremendous 
contribution 
to stimulating 
entrepreneurship 
and guiding farmers 
through changes...
Organizing producer 
groups helps smaller-
scale producers 
address a range of 
constraints
DEvEloPINg PRoDUCER oRgaNIZaTIoNS
Extension  workers  can  also  facilitate  farmers  working 
with producer organisations. Producer organisations can 
make useful contributions to developing entrepreneurship 
among farmers. On a practical level, they can help by: 
•  Providing information and other advisory and capacity-
building services; 
•  Strengthening  market  (bargaining)  power  through 
supporting  horizontal  and  vertical  integration  and 
facilitating coordination among producers; 
•  Creating  a  foundation  for  profits  through  collective 
storage and processing; 
•  Representing  farmers’  interests  in  policy  negotiations 
and dialogue with other agribusiness stakeholders and 
local, regional and national authorities; 
•  Providing technical assistance to their members to meet 
quality standards and possible certification criteria. 
 
In  terms  of  helping  foster  entrepreneurship, 
producer organisations can help by:
•  Providing a safety net and encouragement to take risks;
•  Creating opportunities for farmers to share ideas and 
test  them  out  among  farmers  with  similar  production 
systems and circumstances;
•  Providing  opportunities  for  ‘weaker’  farmers  to  learn 
from ‘stronger’ farmers in a safe environment; 
•  Encourage  members  to  reinvest  profits  into  their  farm 
businesses and into new opportunities in the value chain.
 
Through  producer  organisations,  small-scale 
farmers  can  link  with  other  farmers  and  stakeholders 
along value chains. To be effective, the process requires 
dialogue, both amongst the farmers and between their 
representatives and other stakeholders along the value 
chain including other producers, processors, marketers, 
consumers and business associations.  

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Extension support for developing entrepreneurial capacity 
107
 
Transparency  and  openness  in  decision-making 
is  also  important  to  facilitating  entrepreneurship  among 
farmers  through  producer  organisations.  Through  open 
and  transparent  collective  leadership  and  participatory 
management newer farmer-entrepreneurs will gain trust 
and will be able to follow the processes used by the producer 
organisation to be successful and viable in the long run. 
Producer organisations “create opportunities for economic 
development, such as training farmers, building new
market information systems, identifying new market
outlets, creating new financial services for farmers and
innovative research.” – Agri-Hubs in Africa 2011
 
As  groups  grow  increasingly  self-reliant,  the 
extension worker can focus on second level organisations 
that are formed through the association of two or more of 
the primary producer groups. They form to create greater 
bargaining  power  particularly  for  purchasing  inputs 
and  marketing  products.  They  help  ensure  long-term 
sustainability of the primary organisations by increasing 
the reputation and legitimacy of the primary organisations.