Organisational Antecedents

USMEFAN is a Coalition of Smallholder farmers and their organisations, in search of Scale.  At the end of the day, associations of smallholder farmers ― be they small cooperative associations, or NGO facilitated farmers’ groups - small and large, or commodity associations, etc., ―― have very weak muscle when it comes to the task of vigorously defending the interests of smallholder farmers against policy, political and other tyr-annies that keep them down and impoverished.  Unfortunately, the large organizations of farmers in the so-called National Apex farmers’ Organisations have become as transient as the specific ruling administrations and political parties that float them ――  being mostly “beni oui oui” entities and useless in the domain of sus-tained struggles for smallholder-friendly policies and conditions.  In these organizations, smallholder farmer members are nothing more than cannon fodder in the negotiations of leaders to secure their own perquisites and a few crumbs for the organizations.  Most often, they are dominated by so-called large scale farmers propped up by political parties in power and dutifully obedient to their masters.