Regional Markets

4 Opportunities for development
their capacity and meet the requirements for sustainable participation in local market
chains. These efforts include access to extension and veterinary services, storage
facilities, market information (through enhanced mobile phone use), opportunities to
improve road infrastructure and transport.
In an environment full of challenges—droughts, inadequate infrastructure and price
volatility, to name a few—the beating of the drum was heard. NGOMA has positioned
itself as a strong smallholder-focused social movement, placing the interests of smallscale
dairy and maize farmers on the political agenda. It has applied a broad participatory
approach to ensure a farmer-led agenda for its lobby and advocacy activities. In
the process, NGOMA established district-based action groups and a national steering
committee, which ensure genuine representation of farmer interests. It has further
established links with similar lobby groups in other agricultural sectors to scale up and
deepen its lobby and advocacy work. NGOMA sought to empower farmers by linking
their representatives with primary duty bearers (namely officials from the Ministry
of Agriculture and the Ministry of Livestock Development). As a result, the farmers
could benefit from technical support and capacity building. The private sector was also
involved, and the revival of two dairy cooperatives did secure higher producer prices.
Another case involving large numbers of relatively poor producers is the case of cotton
production in Zimbabwe. Zimbabwean cotton farmers face serious obstacles, and
the cotton sector has a central place in the poverty-reduction strategy in many rural
areas in the country. For 200,000 small-scale farmers, usually cultivating small 1-2 acre
fields, cotton is their main source of livelihood. The Smallholder Cotton Value Chain
Development Pilot Project found a locked market with monopolistic buyers determining
input and output prices. Through collective actions, farmers could correctly calculate
their input and output prices and press for negotiations with key local actors.
Their effort resulted in the doubling of cotton prices for the 2009–2010 season and
the recognition of the farmers’ plight by the Ministry of Agriculture. Interestingly, the
same ministry also issued statutory instruments that restricted the farmers’ power to
challenge contractors. In 2010 a new Federal Cotton Producers Association (FCPA)
was established by smallholder cotton producers who did not feel that they were represented.
The new FCPA had 20,000 registered members within one week. The trigger
was the action taken by two large farmers’ unions to abandon their constituencies and
side with ginners and merchants during the cotton pricing negotiations. Despite the
successful price increases since the 2009–2010 season, the cotton market is still far from
a situation of free and fair competition. Strong monopolistic tendencies in the cotton
industry are keeping smallholders in a marginal position.
If the two cases above stress the impact of social movements within economic processes,
the case of banana production in Zimbabwe underscores the potential for mobi-
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