On 12-18 August, the Small Farmers Adapting to Global Markets Project (the SFAGM Project) successfully held a training workshop on governance, operation and management of farmers’ co-operatives in Wuchuan, Inner Mongolia. Experts from Tsinghua University, Zhejiang University and Inner Mongolia Institute of Finance & Economics designed the training program elaborately as per needs of trainees. Upon invitation, Mr. Chen Xinzhao, President of Zhejiang Tonglu Pear Co-operative, and Mr. Wang Fudong, purchasing manager of Beijing Tian’an Agriculture Development Co., Ltd., were present at the training workshop and shared their practical experience with the participants. Also, some leaders of farmers’ co-operatives that the SFAGM Project and the Sustainable Agriculture Development Project (the SADP Project) set at the project sites in Sichuan and Inner Mongolia, as well as extension workers of agricultural technology -- a total of over 60 persons, attended the training.

The SFAGM Project has always attached importance to the development of farmers’ professional co-operative economic organizations, thinking that a farmers’ co-operative is an important platform for improving farm produce’s quality and increasing farmers’ income. As Law on Farmers’ Professional Co-operatives was promulgated and enforced formally on July 1 of this year, the project designed and organized this training activity to meet the demand for the development of farmers’ co-operatives in the project areas. The training contents include how to establish a co-operative, how to operate a co-operative properly, how to understand the law on co-operatives, how to sell products of co-operatives, how to build up leadership and how to conduct human resources management of co-operatives, etc.

Zhejiang Province is fairly advanced in the development of co-operatives and has accumulated rich experience in the management and operation of co-operatives. Therefore, the project specifically invited an expert, who came from the Carter Center of Zhejiang University, to introduce Zhejiang’s experience in the development of co-operatives, and invited the President of Zhejiang Tonglu Pear Co-operative to use his own experience as an example to interact with the trainees. And then, the experts from Inner Mongolia Institute of Finance & Economics provided training on how to conduct human resources management and build up leadership; the experts from Tsinghua University provided training on how to avoid pitfalls and how to cultivate middle-level leaders in the development of co-operatives by centering on the principles of modern enterprise management; the experts from Beijing Tian’an Agriculture Development Co., Ltd. shared their experience with farmers’ co-operatives and introduced the opportunities and challenges encountered by small farmers and farmers’ co-operative organizations as a result of the changes in the market of modern farm produce. During the training session, the trainees made a field visit to Wuchuan Shengfeng Green Farm Produce Association. This association took the lead to build up a food safety tracing system in Wuchuan County.

In the opinions of the trainees, this training was very closely combined with the actual work. The experts had both profound theoretical insights and rich practical experience, and moreover, all the participants had an opportunity to communicate with leaders of successful co-operatives. The trainees were thankful to the project for organizing such a good and successful training workshop, thinking that the training had benefited them a lot and had helped them solve their long-daunting problems in the reality. After the training was over, the trainees had formulated their own plans for development of co-operatives and presented their reports at the concluding meeting. The presidents of many farmers’ associations said that they want to seize the time to transform their associations into co-operatives, and by taking the opportunity of the national vigorous effort to develop co-operatives, gain a bigger development momentum for their own organizations and bring more benefits to farmers.