From April 23 to 30, 2026, Madagascar hosted the 2026 edition of the Fert & Partner Farmer Organization (FO) Encounters. For a week, 129 participants including technical advisors and lead farmers from 10 countries (France, Spain, Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, Kenya, Malawi, Morocco, Tunisia, Georgia, and Madagascar) gathered in the Malagasy Highlands to share their experiences, compare their practices, and reflect together on the future of their organizations and family farming.
Beyond the numbers and the schedule, these Encounters are, above all, about a story: one of collective peer-to-peer learning, deeply rooted in farming realities. Here, everyone is both a learner and a contributor.
129 stakeholders, 10 countries, one common ambition: a recap of the Fert & partner FO Encounters
Diving into reality: concrete practices and universal questions
The guiding theme of these 6th International Encounters
was “From local… to national: how farmers organize
to manage the services they need.”
From Antananarivo to Antsirabe, by way of Ampefy, participants were able to discover firsthand the actions carried out by the local, regional, and national farmer organizations of the Fifata group in partnership with Fert, through numerous field visits in the Analamanga, Itasy, and Vakinankaratra regions.
It all begins with observation: a compost platform shared among members of a base FO, a collective storage system, or even an animal vaccination service organized by a town council.
And very quickly, observation gives way to questions:
- How are these services funded over the long term?
- What is the role of producers in decision-making?
- How can we balance the accessibility of services, meaning an affordable cost for members and with financial autonomy?
These questions cut across all the visits. They reveal an essential reality: there is no single model. Each organization builds its solutions based on its needs, its resources, and its history.
At the regional level, discussions with two regional FOs provided a better understanding of their role in coordinating and structuring these services:
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Fimami, in the Analamanga region, created in 2025, which is progressively building its services and economic model.
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Fikotamifi, in the Itasy region, created in 2006, which illustrates the challenges of consolidation, governance evolution, and long-term sustainability.
These two examples show that organizations are not static: they evolve, adapt, test, and adjust.
From the field to the big picture: understanding an organization in motion
The Encounters also provided an opportunity to take a step back and look at the overall organization of the Fifata group. A visit to Fifata’s headquarters featured a presentation by its President, providing a better understanding of its operations, its governance, and its structuring role at the national level centered around two main missions: member services and advocacy.
Through dedicated booths, participants were also able to discover the diversity of specialized farmer organizations (SFOs) and existing mechanisms within the network: advisory services (Cap Malagasy), agricultural training and professional integration for young people (Fekama), leadership training (Formagri), agricultural financing (Cecam), and fruit and vegetable experimentation and advisory services (Ceffel). This transition from the field to the global vision highlighted a key reality: it is local initiatives, driven by farmers, that fuel and shape national dynamics.
Another highlight was the visit to Ceffel, a leading technical center for agroecology with 20 hectares dedicated to agricultural experimentation. Participants explored trial plots, innovations, and an in vitro culture laboratory for producing healthy potato seedlings. This stop brought to light the importance of the link between research, experimentation, and dissemination to farmers. Research begins with farmers expressing their needs. Its results are then shared with farms through advisors and lead farmers. This connection between experimentation and the field illustrates a central principle: innovation only makes sense if farmers can take ownership of the solutions.
“Collaborators from Unigrains had the enriching opportunity to participate in the 6th Fert & FO Encounters held in Madagascar, and thus share a privileged moment dedicated to exchanging experiences around the concrete initiatives made possible through Fert’s actions.
This week spent in the field allowed us to better understand the specific challenges facing Malagasy family farming and the resulting needs. At the same time, it strengthened our knowledge of the organization and services offered to farmers under the long-standing support program driven by Fert-Fifata, allowing us to tangibly measure its impact and challenges.
The exchanges and sharing of experiences with farmers from other country delegations were also particularly interesting.
Finally, key structural priorities were identified, which fully reinforces the necessity of long-term structural support.”
Organizations rooted in thier territories
As the discussion progressed, a clear idea emerged: agricultural services are all the more effective when they are designed with the needs of farmers in mind
Base FOs (BFOs), made up of small groups of farmers, organize concrete services: access to inputs, storage, savings, training, or mutual aid. They constitute the first level of response to local needs.
When these needs exceed their capacities, other levels take over:
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Municipal unions, which structure services for the development of value chains (chicken, potato, seeds, etc.).
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Regional organizations (RFOs), which handle coordination, logistics, and the development of services on a larger scale, while structuring partnerships with public and private actors.
This progressive organization, from the local to the regional level, and ultimately to the national level, makes it possible to meet a diversity of needs while maintaining strong territorial roots and localized advisory services.
Innovations driven by the field
The Encounters also highlighted the innovative capacity of farmer organizations.
For instance:
- Farmers committed to agroecology are now attracting businesses for secure commercial partnerships with remunerative prices;
- The integration of community agents within FOs allows for better integration of nutrition and health challenges;
- Pooling systems (for equipment, savings, and services) are being developed to ensure the long-term sustainability of activities.
These initiatives are not the result of imported solutions, but rather of approaches built locally by the farmers themselves with the support of technicians, with both groups benefiting from continuous training.
Learning from others… to act better at home
One of the highlights of the Encounters does not take place in the field, but rather during the feedback and debriefing sessions.
These sessions brought to light several points for reflection, some of which were critical:
- A continued strong dependence on external funding,
- Economic models that still need to be consolidated,
- The question of compensation for key actors, particularly lead farmers.
These exchanges are what make the Encounters so valuable, because peer-to-peer learning also means being willing to question your own practices.
What’s next ?
Each participant is invited to ask themselves a simple question: “What am I going to do with everything I have seen and heard here?”
The goal is not to replicate things exactly, but to draw inspiration, adapt, and transform.
Every participant leaves with ideas, questions, and sometimes a reassessment of their own methods, but above all with the conviction that solutions already exist somewhere and that they can travel: How can we capitalize on these learnings and adapt them to each context? How can we sustain these virtuous development dynamics in a climate of declining official development assistance?
Throughout the encounters, participants exchanged experiences, questions, and solutions in a friendly atmosphere shaped by mutual understanding and a shared approach across all countries, which can be summarized as:
“Farmers at the center” and “The FO as a means, not an end.”
The last day of the Encounters is not an end in itself; it is, above all, a starting point.
These Encounters were organized as part of the TransAgri program, which receives financial support from the AFD (French Development Agency) alongside technical and/or financial support from numerous other partners: Unigrains, EU, IFAD, GIZ, AgriCord, Louis Dreyfus Foundation, Avril Foundation, Action Solidarité Madagascar, Un Enfant par la Main, Fermes de Figeac, and CIRAD.
