Abstract:
Farmer-Based Organisations were formed to resolve the common problems faced by small-scale
farmers through collective approaches. The FBOs has been categorised into two groups as
community-based with resources oriented and commodity-based with market-oriented. There can
be two different types of FBO, namely farmer organisations (FO) and farmer companies. This
review attempted to discuss the status of the FOs in Sri Lanka while paying special emphasis on
the tea smallholding sector in Sri Lanka. This review revealed that Farmer Organisations are not
effectively operating in many sectors in Sri Lanka due to several reasons. This review exposed
that like many other FO in Sri Lanka, Rural Tea Societies also mainly deal with inputs,
government aids and heavily depend on extension service. These FOs do not involve in
processing, value addition and marketing-related activities, and thus they can not be considered
as market-oriented FOs.As community-based organisations,their production support activities are
also not satisfactory with respect to many cases. These FOs do not engage in any For-Profit
functions, and total financial gain received by the members are due to the selling of their primary
products. Thus they are far behindthe status of Indian FPC and Agriculture Cooperatives in
Japan. |
