Professional Farmer 2017
Millard Winnin
Paid time-off for farmers is one of the intriguing ideas that caught the attention of our group during the recent Kansas Farm Bureau Casten Fellows international travel experience to the Baltics. One of the young farmers we met shared that the Replacement Farmers program provides subsidized, qualified workers to help during illness or time away on vacation.
That clear recognition of the mastery needed to succeed in farming was a lightbulb moment for our group. We realized that every farmer we met with in the Baltics has made a conscious decision with their career and business ownership.
There is no multi-generational pressure because farm ownership is still in the first generation. People choosing farming careers take their work seriously; they seek out education and training opportunities to improve themselves because everyone there remembers how many people failed at farming after the region was liberated from Soviet occupation. Farming is a respected profession.
So many people in our world think farmers are people who lack intelligence and ambition. They definitely have no idea how many are college educated with degrees in everything from engineering and finance to chemistry and genetics. I always enjoy enlightening people who have never met a farmer and have visions of farmers being what they were portrayed as on television shows of the 1950s.
However, if we are going to believe historical definitions we need to include ones that add the idea of professionals providing services for the benefit of the client or the public. Farmers definitely do that.
As Americans, we enjoy the most abundant, safest and cheapest food supply in the world. That has allowed the public to detach itself from the realities of what it takes to ensure the security of this foundational need. The supply chain disruptions of the past 18 months are the first time in the lives of many generations that we have had even the slightest moments of scarcity.
If you are one of the people just noticing farmers, I hope you see the way they have worked to improve their practices to ensure food safety; updated equipment and inputs to increase efficiency keeping costs low; and innovated and experimented to increase yields to keep up with global demand. They continue to plant their crops and care for animals whether prices are high or low. They wear dozens of hats and are continually learning to stay on top of their ever-changing industry.
This document provides guidelines describing the characteristics of a professional farmer organization. It is primarily targeted towards commercially-oriented farmer organizations rather than purely socially-oriented farmer organizations or individual farmers. It is intended to be relevant for large and small farmer organizations, without regard to the number of members, volume of business, output or capital investment, nor to the specific crop or product. The implementation and interpretation of this document can be adapted for very small or nascent organizations, for specific or differentiated products, or for markets with special requirements.
This standard contributes to the following Sustainable Development Goals 1 No Poverty 2 Zero Hunger 5 Gender Equality 8 Decent Work and Economic Growth 12 Responsible Consumption and Production 13 Climate Action 3 Good Health and Well-being 10 Reduced Inequalities 14 Life Below Water 15 Life on Land Got a question?Check out our Help and Support
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IWA 29:2019 provides guidelines for the characteristics of a professional farmer organization. Specifically, it details specifications on improving the capabilities of professional farmer organizations and thereby their level of professionalism in general. By implementing IWA 29:2019 guidelines, professional farmer organizations are more likely to have better business opportunities, perform better for their members and staff, and have greater sustainability.
The standard is relevant for large and small professional farmer organizations, without regard to the specific crop or product. Hence, IWA 29:2019 can be adapted for very small or nascent organizations, for specific or differentiated products, or for markets with special requirements.
Agricultural development is crucial for many Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The United Nations SDGs urge the international community to make investments to double agricultural incomes of small-scale food producers. Besides helping the economy and creating new livelihoods related to farming, SDGs related to agriculture can help end hunger, improve nutrition, and reduce carbon emissions via mitigation and adaptation strategies. IWA 29:2019 supports the achievement of the SDGs, focusing on the following specific goals:
Longer-term aspects for production and quality management can consider aspects such as crop rotations, new crops/breeds/products, risk management, market projections, staying abreast of new technology and best practices, and new breeds.
The Professional Farmer Kit supports smallholder farmers who strive to achieve good agricultural practice by providing expert advice on how to minimize the risk of exposure to crop protection products. Apart from the important aspect of safety, the kit has the added bonus of being affordable and comfortable to wear.
At Nuru, a firm belief remains constant: the best way to cultivate lasting meaningful choices is from within the community, within the household, and within the farmer. Nuru focuses on better yields, higher incomes, more savings, and locally-led dialogues. Through this, Nuru ensures that farmers like Joshua Makira Chacha in Kenya, Denknesh Abro in Ethiopia, and Saratu in northeast Nigeria can define those choices for themselves.
The motivation and skills needed for Joshua, Denknesh, or Saratu to move from subsistence farming to farming as a business already exist within themselves and their communities. To be resilient, those innate capacities often require farmers to alter behaviors, systems, and even their ways of life, just like someone who is trying to apply a new set of tools to improve their life anywhere in the world. These changes protect their families, their economies, and their environment. Altering the expectations and behaviors we have grown up with can prove difficult, isolating, and slowed by collective inertia. The willingness to change is a risk that requires trusted information, tools, and finance. These must be informed by the melding of culture, experience, and science in order to generate sustainable change. To build this trust, the Nuru Model is designed to be led by the community, informed by science, and adaptable to lessons learned from failures.
Over the past 12 years, these core values have remained constant, as Nuru adapted its development model to focus on building profitable and professional farmer-led businesses (farmer organizations). These businesses build resilience through unity and trust between communities, governments, and the private sector. Profitable and professional farmer organizations in rural communities ensure farmers like Joshua, Denknesh and Saratu can continue to produce extra crops, continue to get fair market prices, and continue to feel empowered as established leaders in their communities. Farmer organizations, often taking shape as farmer-owned and farmer-led agricultural cooperatives, act as a sustainability engine, a force that helps people in the most vulnerable communities around the world adapt to new and not yet imagined challenges to their ways of life.
At Nuru, a self-sustaining farmer organization is a farmer-owned and maintained agribusiness that is financially sustainable, managed efficiently and fairly by its leadership, and provides socio-economic benefits to its community based on the seven cooperative principles. In 2020, Nuru worked with communities, while actively adapting to COVID-19, to deliver the trusted information, tools, and financial support needed. These resources helped to ensure that more than 10,000 small-scale farmers found meaningful choices through profitable and professional (i.e. self-sustaining) farmer organizations.
In order to successfully exit, replicate and scale the Nuru Model to new communities and countries, Nuru must evaluate the capacity of emerging farmer organizations. Nuru must determine whether they are able to sustain the meaningful choices they bring their farmer members. Profitability and professionalism form the foundation of this determination by assessing 1) net profit via financial statements, and 2) organizational maturity via SCOPEinsight.
Achieving profitability is certainly the easier of the two indicators to communicate: do the farmer organizations make enough money to cover their expenses? The latter indicator is more elusive as it is tied to a standardized 90+ indicator SCOPEinsight Basic. This assessment is linked to a database with over 4,000 comparable farmer organizations operating across 40+ countries. The comparability and consistency of the SCOPEinsight assessments helps farmer organizations like Genda Multi-purpose Cooperative in Zala Woreda, SNNPR, Ethiopia benchmark their business performance and maturity with similar businesses in Kenya, Nigeria, or Uganda. Individual farmers like Denknesh directly benefit from these extensive business assessments because Nuru local NGOs summarize, translate, and deliver the actionable information back to the leadership of the local farmer organization of which Denknesh is a member, Genda Cooperative.
Nuru Nigeria is currently organizing the first cohort of farmers into farmer-led businesses in 2021. This will be evaluated based on the same key performance indicators in 2023 after two years of business operations.***
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