African Farmers' Committee Meeting

21-24 March 2007

Cotnou, Benin

Recommendations adopted by the 15th Session

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The African Committee of IFAP should become an « Action Committee » based on African farmers’ perspectives and interests in the field, here are the recommendations from the 15th Session of the African Committee to achieve this;

Session 1: Situation of agriculture in Africa

Action by Farmers Organisations (FOs)

National level

To lobby governments and financial institutions for specific rural finance
To lobby governments to support the establishment of a farmers’ Bank
To create rural savings and credit schemes within FO’s membership (Village Banks)
To institutionalise participation of women according to the Beijin Action Plan and youth in the FO’s (eg constitution, structure..)
To create a mechanism for consultations from the grassroot level to the international level
To lobby governments to allocate the agreed resources to agriculture
To lobby governments for policy changes
To lobby their governments to go for regional integration to facilitate access to regional markets and reduce the high dependency on international market
FOs should endeavour to be strong in their countries and influence their government policies to be able to influence international organisation such as the World Bank

Actions by Regional /International level

To create a mechanism for sharing good practices and build relationship among FOs at the continental level on a more continuous basis

Actions by Development partners and FOs

Capacity building for farmers still remain a big activity

To create awareness to farmers on their potential strength (rebalancing the power structure in a country)
To create awareness on issues at stake (e.g. 10% of national budget should be allocated to agriculture – Maputo Declaration)
To support building of professional organisations in term of institutional and human resource development

To develop cooperation between FOs in Africa and South-South exchange visits among FOs to share success stories.
To develop Guideline/framework of best practices of Public-Private Dialogue

Session 2: Environment and natural resources

Actions by FOs at all levels and Development agencies

To put in place mechanisms for compensation on climatic risks in farming

To Create awareness on the issues around climate change, biodiversity and desertification
Preparation and dissemination of policy briefs on these issues
To facilitate debate on renewable energy and biodiversity in the context of food security in Africa
To translate these protocols and conventions into local actions at the national level
To put in place appropriate policy environment for farmers investments (e.g. tax exemption, capital allowances, duty rebates, regulatory…)
To ensure that Farmers are able to participate and influence the setting up of regulatory policies framework (on standards, certification).

Session 3 : Rural poverty and hunger (MDGs)

Actions by FOs

right to food is a duty of the Government towards its citizen, and for this reason, FOs need to pressure government to support their agricultural activities to produce food

Actions by National and international research institutions

Research on adapted varieties to cope with climate change

Actions by FOs and development partners

Development of dissemination mechanism
Development of regional integration
Lobby for inclusion into the research system
Proactive participation with expert institutions
Development of an agenda, budget and professional staff for research activities
Redirect the national research agenda
Clear consultative process to the grass root level on all these issues
Develop strong leadership to communicate the needs of farmers to be communicate with the decision makers
to provide a platform for exchange of views that should have to be respected
to define clear roles and responsibilities

Actions by FOs and research institutions

Development of a framework of engagement between IFAP and both International Agricultural research Institutions (CGIAR- Advanced Research Institutions) and Regional Agricultural research systems (FARA- sub regional Organisation (SROs) -Regional agricultural research centres).

Session 4: Market access

Commodity crisis

Coffee

Actions by FOs

To advocate for removal or reduction of tariffs on value added coffee into EU markets
To advocate for short marketing chains in coffee
To lobby to influence consumer habits and preferences
To create awareness on traceability and safety issues in coffee

Actions by FOs and Development agencies

To support African coffee farmers to organize themselves into strong commodity farmer organizations (manageable groups/associations/coops) based on farmer ownership model
To support farmers to access grants to work towards compliance with conventional coffee standards and implementing specialty certification schemes

Bananas

Actions by FOs and Development agencies

Bananas producers in producing countries should meet frequently in order to compare their situation, exchange experiences and develop common positions
Bananas producers should be able to defend their interest at the WTO. Therefore there is a need to lobby that ACP countries obtain a full participation at the dispute settlement discussions on Bananas as the liberalisation of the EU market will have a direct impact on them as exporters of Bananas within the EU.
To lobby for exchange rates impact to be discussed at the WTO

All commodities

Actions by FOs

To push for setting up regional certification for products in Africa
To lobby for price stabilisation mechanisms to be given attention due to declining prices and price volatility

Actions by FOs and IFAP

To lobby to include commodities problems as part of all the main on-going development initiatives taken at international level: Millennium Development goals, NEPAD as well as bilateral ones e.g. EPAs
To lobby on Market concentration issue, by asking for extending the transparency that WTO rules are setting for state trading enterprise to private ones as well.
To lobby for the inclusion of this proposal in discussion during the WTO negotiations on agriculture and NAMA
To lobby their governments to be part of any commodity arrangement that would emerge from that

Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs)

Actions by FOs

To lobby for the implementation of EPAs to be benchmarked to the successful investment programmes aimed at upgrading production capacity (roads, transport, telecommunications, energy, market info system)
To lobby that the implementation and reactive monitoring of EPA be institutionalised with regional farmers organisations

Actions by FOs, Development agencies and IFAP

Implementation of a working group within the IFAP African committee on EPAs to develop a lobby and communication action plan towards policy decision makers (including parlementarians within developed and developing countries).
FOs and development agencies should work on a comprehensive Action Programme on EPAs which will incorporate the interaction with Youths and academic institutions.

Session 5: Strenghthening the place of the farmer in the food chain

Actions by Association of European Parliamentarian for Africa (AWEPA)

To provide forum for discussion between FOs and National Governments (Parliaments)
To promote peer review among parliamentarians in Africa in the spirit of NEPAD.

Recommendations towards IFAP

To improve its visibility at all levels including local level
To strengthen dissemination mechanism on global issues to FOs to allow them to contribute constructively in international debates.
To help FOs to pool their resources together to come up with positions on the World Bank report (WDR 2008)
To develop Guideline/framework of best practices of Public-Private Dialogue
To advocate for smallholder coffee farmer active representation at ICO council and relevant international commodity organisations
To facilitate creation of strategic partnerships between African coffee farmer organizations and medium scale European Roasters for value addition and shortening the marketing chain
Bananas producers should be able to defend their interest at the WTO. Therefore there is a need to lobby that ACP countries obtain a full participation at the dispute settlement discussions on Bananas as the liberalisation of the EU market will have on direct impact on them as the main exporters of Bananas within the EU.
To lobby that exchange rates impact be discussed at the WTO
TORs for IFAP’s Tropical commodities be expanded to handle other major tropical commodities widely traded and where many farmers depend on for their livelihoods.
To provide analysis of the EPAs and points for FOs to pay attention during the EPA negotations to help them develop a position paper
To organise workshops on EPAs for FOs