Participatory Approach of Mobilizing Smallholders into Producers’ Organizations 

Smallholder Producer Organizations (POs) plays pivotal role for any investment projects especially for providing extension services and reaching out-of-the-reach community. During 2012-2013, FAO –Bangladesh has conducted Farmers Organization (FO) Mapping and Capacity Assessment to fill the knowledge gap around FOs in Bangladesh. The report unveiled 198 114 FOs of various types were identified. Eighty-one percent were formed with support from government agencies, 14 percent from national NGO s, 5 percent from international NGOs, less than 0.01 percent – only 12 organizations – were formed autonomously and just over 2 percent of FOs are federated at any level. The mapping exercise revealed major challenges faced by FOs which are: (i) the bulk of FOs are small and disconnected; (ii) most FOs are externally promoted by government agencies, NGOs and projects; and (iii) key principles (autonomy, inclusive leadership, strong membership base, needs based service provision and clear, owned purpose) are not applied systematically. Moreover, the study also explored that field extension manual are albeit rich on technology dissemination but apparently there are no contents for mobilizing strong producers organizations (POs). Therefore, this guideline has been prepared for Farmer Business Facilitators (FBFs)/Community Organizers (CO)/Extension Workers of SBKS with an aim to mobilize strong and inclusive producer organizations.