Farmers appreciate the stages of organisation growth

Small scale farmer leaders in eastern and southern Africa says they will take organisational development (OD) as an essential item to address at the national farmers forum development.

The farmers said that during the workshop on OD that was organized recently in Dar es salaam, Tanzania.

The facilitator of the workshop, the OD expert in Tanzania, Mr. Djax Biria says that organizational growth is like the human being growth. He says they both have to move from dependence through independence to interdependence. He added that “As human being, organizations are born, grow, reach maturity, performs and die”. He said that small scale organizations have to get through all these stages.

He said however that small scale farmers organizations should be built on the understanding that they are voluntary sector with special mission to enable small scale farmers speaks with on voice. “at each stage however, you need to reflect on what works and what need to be improved”, Mr. Biria stressed.

On his part, facilitator Mr. Omar Ame Jecha said that small scale farmers need to adopt and use the Self Asses Your Organisation (SAYO) tool as a health measure for organizations.

He said farmers’ organizations can measure their level of governance, human resource management, Office resources management, financial resources management   and relations with other stakeholders (media, governments and other NGOs).

During the training workshop small scale farmer leaders in the region were argued to conduct self assessment for their organisations and draw concrete plans with timeline to address the gaps identified.