Pierre Rondot
| Organisation | Centre International de Recherche Agronomique pour le Developpement (CIRAD) |
|---|---|
| Organization type | Research Institution |
| Pays | France |
With an agricultural engineer background and a PhD in Agricultural Economics, Pierre Rondot has more than 35 years of experience in rural development and rural producer organizations capacity building at local, national, regional and international level. He has worked in West Africa, South East Asia and in Middle East and North African countries, with (i) NGOs such as the Centre International de Développement et de Recherche (CIDR-France), OXFAM etc., (ii) Research Institutions such as le Centre International de Recherche Agronomique pour le Développement (CIRAD) and (iii) International organizations such as the Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UN/ESCAP) and the World Bank.
Pierre Rondot has extensive research and development field experience with specific emphasis in: (i) agricultural services development, including support to rural producer organizations to access input and output markets; (ii) market (export and domestic) development through quality improvements; (iii) community-organizations and rural producer organizations’ capacity-building (technical, organizational and institutional), (iv) promotion of negotiations processes between rural producer organizations and public and private institutions; (iv) public/private institutional reforms.
Pierre Rondot has retired from the Word Bank Agriculture and Rural Development Department in March 2012 and is now working, on a part time basis, with CIRAD, based in Montpellier, France.
This member participated in the following Forums
Forum Forum: "ICT and producer organizations" November, 2012
Question 2 (opens 14 Nov.)
Producer organizations always tend to have database first to know who are their members and how many they are? Where do members live etc.. This is easy for local organization. This is more complicated for regional and Apec organizations. You are right there is a need for IC technolgy for that too.
These data base are also useful for the financial management of the organization.
A lot of cooperatives also have databases of input suplliers with their characteristics etc..
John and Riikka, I believe the dicussion is helpfull
It seems we may identify different technology for different purpose
- IC technology for the organization to be more efficent, more transparent and more accountable : radio, web, others ....
- IC technology to increase business performances of the organizations and its members (i) local and distant market information, (ii) market opportunities, (iii) knowledge/technology information (extension) others... . These are cell phone, web, radio as well, K7, others...
- IC technology for advocacy at local regional and national level to value their knowledge and tradition and have their voice heard in on radio, social networks, forums etc..
- How IC technology can facilitate farmers access to financing and what would be the role of the farmer organization??
In any case, as Riika say there is a need to build the PO ICT base and skills (whether radio, internet, videos for learning, off-line courses, mobile based services, etc) either for them to run the IC technology or to contract out the management of these technology and being able to control the work done by the professional.
Dear Sansu
You are very right, radio is a remarquable instrument to connect rural people together and a lot of producer organization try to use radio for that purpose. They are often facing difficulties to obtain the license to have a local radio and radio may be costly to run.
Are you or anyone aware of easy radio technology that farmers organizations could run without having to have a studio etc...???
In Senegal, fishermen are now using their cell phone to check the price of fish on various markets before going back to shore and they select the landing ground where the price is the best. Their organization is helping them to find out the best place.
I agree with you Peter. ICT should be about empowerment of the members of the organization. Now how to do?
Farmers must be educated (certainly yes) and tehy need capacity building. At the same time how can ICT value what farmers already know? What farmers want ? How can ICT build on existing farmers knowledge to have it recognised.
Farmers when organized, have goals and objectives they want to acheive. The beauty of ICT is that it may be complex technology but most often easy to use technology. Look at the celle phone or the computers.
How can ICT help farmers get organized and empowered to have their voice heard or to negotiate contracts, collectively so their bargaining power is bigger than if they negotiate on an individual basis?
Until now, the discussion on question 2 is mainly on ICT products needed to improve agriculture, market access etc..
If we look at the question from the point of view of a rural producer organization leader, we may find that leaders may be interested in ICT products to help them better manage their organizations for their organizations to be more efficient in delivering services demanded by members.
Leaders have access to information (policy, market opportunities etc..) and knowledge that they want to share with members and other leaders, and they may want to hear from each other as well. Organizing meeting is costly and time consuming in particular in rural areas. What ICT technology can help producer organization leaders share information with other leaders and members and receive feedback from them? Leader may want ICT product them solve conflict between members or between their organization and traders or Government institutions. Leader may want ICT products to help them have members voice heard by Government, by consumers, by traders or food industries etc. . What ICT instrument exist for that? Leader may want to have ICT products to help them negotiate (as an organization not as an individual) with traders and or government officials, etc. .
When we look at the web site of the Conseil National de Concertation des Ruraux in Senegal (http://www.cncr.org), we can see that their site is to share information about who they are, what they do etc.. When I was working with them, they wanted to develop a CNCR intranet to better connect with their regional and grass root member organizations. I don't know if they have their intranet today.
What kind of ICT products can help people leaving in rural areas, better connect between themselves and their leaders when distance between people is important, roads are not good, services are not always efficient, etc.. The ICT technology must be cheap, easy to operate (which does not mean not complex, cf. the cell phone or computers), robust, reliable etc…
Pierre
Dear All
We already discussed the importance of ICT for the farmers and their organizations. We discussed a lot about ICT role to facilitate farmers access to market, to negotiate with traders, to access knowledge and information etc..
We all know that producer organizations are very diverse. They exist at local level. Sometime they are federated a regional and national level and there are 2 international organizations representing farmers.
We all know as well that the relations between local organizations and their Apec organizations are complicated to say the least; accountability and transparency is difficult and costly to implement. If farmers want to have access to market and have their voice heard they need however to be organized from local to regional and/or national.
We also know that a lot of members of producer organizations are illiterate with difficult access to electricity but they almost all have a cell phone.
In this context we may discuss priority ICT investments for local producer organizations versus priority ICT investment for Apec producer organization.
Question 1 (opens 12 Nov.)
A very interesting example Andrea. ZHC seems to integrate all the key actors of the honey supply chain from producers to retailers, including packers etc... It seems that ITC is very helpfull for ZHC to deliver the services demanded by the members.
How old is ZHC and who is financing it?
Dear Anne
Thanks for this excellent example of how ICT can help farmers better negotiate prices or have access to knowledge through a help line.
I have a question. Who is managing the call centers the farmers can call for advices or for prices? Is this a free service? Is this service delivered by a farmers organization to members or by a private firm to every body or by Government?
Thanks in advance
Pierre
Thanks for your very valid comments. ICT are instruments that can be used by people and their organizations to improve the efficency of their organizations. The question is not related to what do producers use ICT for but how producer organizations use ICT to be more effective in delivering services to their members.
You are very right that ICT can be an important tool for producer organizations dealing with food safety. The question to you is do you know andy producer organization engaged in food safety ? Are these organization using ICT ? In other word are you working with cooperative engaged in storing rice ? If yes how can you work with these cooperatives and help/engage them to use ICT to disseminate information you want their member to know?