Together We Stand

[ 127 ] mouthpiece of more than 30,000 dairy farmers. The success of UCCCU is largely attributed to the following: • Effective strategy for mobilization its membership — helping farmers to organize themselves and take charge of their growth and development • Identifying and adequately addressing the needs of its membership • L obbying and advocacy — having discussions with the processors, negotiating for better prices, engaging policymakers, and lobbying for the provision of appropriate services such as extension, marketing and credit to members • Providing up-to-date information about dairy farming to members • Farmer training to improve their planning, implementation and monitoring skills and to empower dairy farmers to participate fully in farming activities. The question serious analysts would pose is: how can the effectiveness of farmers’ organizations be increased in the face of the LRA’s atrocities in the Acholi regions? The support needed by farmers’ organizations is summarized by R. James Bingen and Brent M. Simpson as follows. 1 A focus on lead- ership development is needed to strengthen the farmers’ organizations. This includes sensitizing members to be more self-reliant rather than dependent on external parties to provide resources and build the capacity of farmers’ leaders, especially women. Systems need to be developed to provide up-to-date information to farmers’ organizations, in order to facilitate their participation in developing agriculture and rural development policies. Training should be provided on strategic and operational planning and on evidence-based advocacy skills. In addition, the formation and strengthening of national, regional and international networks of farmers’ organizations should be encouraged. Effective models for cooperation in accessing inputs and markets are needed, in recognition of the fact that smallholder farmers are probably here to stay on the African continent. Hence, as in the north, they have the potential to transform their small business into combined big businesses with stakes in the whole agricultural value chain in their respective regions. Technical knowledge is also important. Farmers in Uganda would benefit from the capacity to collate and disseminate tech- nical information to members on a timely basis. A number of such platforms have been developed elsewhere in the world, which could be adapted to situations in which they are being localized. In a similar vein, one of the great challenges of farmers’ organizations in Uganda is technical knowledge and entrepreneurship in agriculture, especially for youth — creat- ing employment opportunities. Approaches to fill this gap could be adapted from various vocational training models in the north, such as the Netherlands and Germany. Better coordination across the sector can be achieved through a unified body to deal with matters of common interest. The Government could facilitate coordination with a policy for the recognition of legitimate and representative farmers’ organiza- tions, and strengthen such organizations to play their advocacy role more effectively. Participation in national, regional and international forums assists leaders of farmers’ organizations to learn best practice from each other and influence policies at even higher levels than national governments Going forward, in order to effectively build the resilience of farmers’ organizations in post-conflict, fragile situations, there is a need to promote a vision of hope, optimism and inclusion, and to strengthen coordination mechanisms and the capacity of insti- tutions to address critical and transformative issues and promote sustainable development. We need to enhance multi-stakeholder and cross-sector partnerships to build resilience, and to increase long-term development funding for programmes key to build- ing resilience. Advocacy to milk processors is critical in order to undertake product diversification focusing on powered milk, ultra-high temperature processed milk, yoghurt and cheese, in order to utilize a large proportion of farmers’ milk. Better coordination across the sector can be achieved through a unified body to deal with matters of common interest A focus on leadership development, especially for women, is needed to strengthen the farmers’ organizations in the Acholi regions Image: Islamic Devlopment Bank Image: Islamic Devlopment Bank T ogether W e S tand