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some government oficials, who have the necessary skills in legislative advocacy, research and economic analysis.
These cases reinforce the view that pro-farmer policies are more effectively shaped by knowledge-based advocacy,
with good evidence and detailed proposals, rather than by ideological arguments, rent-seeking or blocking change.
Expanding political agency may mean building farmers’ capacity to take on this advocacy themselves; the Nicaraguan
study’s respondents noted that farmers’ groups are usually represented by professional staff of their own or their partners’
organisations, rather than by farmer leaders. Politically active producers also need the capacity to push the government for
adequate implementation and monitoring of programmes. In Nicaragua, some milestone laws in small farmers’ interest have
not been carried out at local levels see Box 5.4.
Learning Network studies beyond Nicaragua add to this picture. In Bolivia, some producers’ organisations are able
to interact directly with national and state leaders, but Galleguillos argued strongly that the Bolivian groups are not
developing coherent proposals to improve small farmers’ bottom line. The most politically powerful organisations
representing farmers are the traditional rural unions, who are vigorously opposed to neoliberalism and globalisation;
these groups also lack the technical capacity to steer policy implementation in favour of their grassroots members.
Some other farmers’ economic associations are interested in reaching more markets, Galleguillos added, but these are not
engaged in political advocacy.
Monterroso, a sociologist and vegetable exporter in Guatemala, echoed the observation that producers lack
capacity to make policy proposals towards their goals. He offered a basic example at a Learning Network meeting,
explaining that one group he worked with succeeded in gaining a political voice in the central government, but
instead of trying to change their competitive playing ield, they simply demanded a new government handout of 42 to
84 kilograms of fertiliser per farmer.
5.1.4 Lack of coherence and coordination in policymaking
Effective advocacy is made more dificult when small-farmer representatives must affect an array of uncoordinated and
sometimes competing institutions and programmes. In Uganda, for example, the Learning Network’s Rwakakamba
reports that strengthening smallholder agriculture has been a goal for decades, but erratic efforts to bring this about have
produced an array of often conlicting policy documents and institutions. There is no central policy framework for small
farms, and major initiatives have arisen from several different unlinked government bodies.
This picture is common across the Learning Network. Government departments in charge of agriculture, trade,
food, water and other relevant sectors fail to coordinate their activities on behalf of small farmers — or to harmonise the
bureaucratic requirements that may stand in the way of new markets. If small-scale producers are to shape the policies
that determine fair market access, their organisations have to be heard by a plethora of institutions. In India, for example,
Arya and Asthana pointed out a range of departments at both the federal and state level regulating trade policy,
subsidies, and the sale of produce at new farmers’ markets instituted by recent legislation. Small-scale producers’
organisations do not have the resources or expertise to engage with all these bodies.
5.1.5 Policymaking driven by large numbers, political opportunities
and short-termism
Ultimately, policymakers may not give much weight to the business interests of small producers because of how these
farmers are seen within the larger policy landscape. National priorities are usually based on large numbers — in the case
of economic policy, on the contributions of different sectors to GDP. In developing countries, agriculture as a whole
usually contributes a much smaller fraction to GDP than to employment — the Learning Network relected this pattern
in Uganda Rwakakamba and Indonesia Natawidjaja, for example — and farmers are thus seen as surplus labour, an
economic ineficiency.
While some governments use cash transfers to low-income farmers to try to ensure food security or ight poverty, states
may also have political goals in offering such lump-sum payments. This also makes farming look more relevant to
social policy rather than to economic policy that improves marketing options and tools.
Government views of smallholders can change, however, in response to different metrics — like food supply — that
reframe farmers’ economic role. In Nicaragua, the Learning Network’s Guharay noted that oficials committed to
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supporting smallholders after recognising that, in spite of lack of investment in the sector over decades, small-
scale producers still contributed 66 per cent of agricultural production as well as 36 per cent of agricultural GDP,
according to central bank data. In-depth studies of small- scale farmers’ contribution to the national and local
economies, carried out by national civil society organisations such as CIPRES, helped to push the case for small-scale
producers in the national policy matrix.
5.2 Policies not supporting economic interests of
small-scale producers
When small-scale producers have little agency in policy processes, it is no surprise to see problems in the resulting
instruments or in the way programmes are implemented. These may try to reach out to smallholders without meeting
their real business needs, or may end up putting smallholders second to large, modernised and politically vocal producers.
Figure 5.1, used by Galleguillos in the Learning Network to evaluate agricultural policies in Bolivia, suggests some of the
ways these policies can fail small farmers. Policy frameworks and development strategies may fail to understand and
respond to the needs of smallholders in the irst place ‘irrationality’, in Figure 5.1. This would include policies
inherently biased towards large producers, or those that fail to differentiate the speciic interests of smaller farms. There
can also be problems with designing instruments in line with policy goals incoherence or with implementing them to get
the desired results ineffectiveness.
5.2.1 Bias in trade agreements, national and local policy
