Working with POs

5 april 2005: "Working with producer organisations: a welcome challenge or a nightmare?"

The first Agri-ProFocus Expert Meeting was held in Wageningen, April 5th 2005 with an audience of 40 attendants from 15 Agri-ProFocus member organisations. Experiences with producer organisations and economic development presented in the Expert Meeting came from 13 conveners form eight different member organisations of Agri-ProFocus and eleven different countries. The presentations were organized in four blocks, grouping comparable issues:

BLOCK 1: ORGANISATIONAL ADVICE
A path of roses?: culture change in a producer organisation - Mexico	Olga van der Valk (WUR-LEI)
Kagera Co-operative Union - Tanzania	Connie Valkhoff (FTA)
Facilitating organisational advice with producer organisations - Bolivia	Gerda Zijm (GOM-ICCO)
We are all boiled together - Kyrgystan	Gerrit Holtland (CTRT)
BLOCK 2: ORGANISATIONAL CHARACTERSTICS
AgriPool and Profiling of producer organisations	Kees Blokland (Agriterra)
Horizontal and vertical integration in producer organisations - the Netherlands	Jos Bijman (WUR-SSG)
Producer organisations and potato chain - Rwanda	Ted Schrader (KIT)
BLOCK 3: AGRI-CHAIN DEVELOPMENT
The Ecuadorian Association of Coffee Growers - Ecuador	Christian Marlin (SNV)
Producer organisations in contract farming - the Philippines	Sietze Vellema (WUR-A&F;)
Export promotion program for organic products - Tanzania/Uganda	Boudewijn van Elzakker (AgroEco)
Linking the informal with the formal: CIOEC against disincentives for peasant enterprise - Bolivia	Giel Ton (WUR-IAC)
BLOCK 4: QUALITY MANAGEMENT
Implementing EurepGap: an impossible demand from retailers or an opportunity for management improvement? - Costa Rica	Dave Boselie (AgroFair) [CANCELED]
Sustainable coffee chain Costa Rica - the Netherlands	Myrtille Danse (ICCO)
Small producer access to socially and environmentally just markets	Rhiannon Pyburn (WUR-CIS)