Farmer Organizations Are Progressing. Can the Support System Progress with Them?

By Cees van Rij • 2 September 2026 • 8-minute read

Since 2024, AgriGRADE partners work together across assessment, technical assistance, market development and finance to provide more coordinated support to farmer organizations. A common assessment methodology provides the shared evidence base for identifying needs, targeting support and tracking progress. Across Kenya and Tanzania, 86 farmer organizations were assessed at baseline and again one year later to track progress and evaluate early outcomes. The initial results provide early indicators that aligned, and targeted support can help farmer organizations build lasting capabilities, while highlighting what is still required to construct a truly connected pathway from organizational development to markets and finance.

Development programs traditionally report on output activities: how many organizations were assessed, how many training sessions took place, or how many farmers were reached. Within AgriGRADE, data is not collected merely for the sake of reporting. Instead, it forms part of the shared data infrastructure through which specialized actors—such as Agriterra, Oikocredit, IDH, and Policy & Market Options—coordinate their support and build upon one another’s contributions.

By starting with a single, shared assessment rather than multiple overlapping data collection forms, farmer organizations and service providers gain a shared evidence base for understanding strengths, gaps, and next steps.

This article explores the findings from this initial cycle in Kenya and Tanzania to address three core questions:

1. What changed after one year of aligned support?
2. How was that change enabled?
3. What do these results tell us about how support to farmer organizations must evolve?

The results: clear progress, different journeys

In January 2025, baseline assessments were conducted across 86 farmer organizations, evaluating 8 major dimensions and 24 subdimensions using SCOPEinsight’s standardized assessment methodology. The assessment graded professionalization levels from level 1 (lowest maturity) to level 4 (highest maturity). Over a year later, reassessments reveal substantial organizational growth:

• Overall growth: 76 of the 86 (88%) reassessed farmer organizations improved their overall professionalization score.
• In Kenya, 26 of 28 (93%) organizations improved. The average assessment score increased by 15% from 2.6 to 3.0, and 12 (43%) organizations moved from Level 2 into the Advanced maturity level 3.
• In Tanzania, 50 of 58 (86%) organizations improved. The average score increased by 17% from 2.3 to 2.7, while 24 (41%) organizations moved to a higher maturity level. Much of this movement came from organizations progressing out of the lowest maturity category.

Both countries show meaningful progress, but their journeys differ:

• In Kenya, farmer organizations generally started from a stronger baseline position.
• In Tanzania, farmer organizations started predominantly at the lowest maturity level.  

This highlights the importance of tailoring support to each organization’s stage of development: early-stage organizations often need to strengthen foundational elements of their business such as service dellvery to members, internal and financial management, whereas more mature organizations benefit more from support to improve market linkages, commercial performance, and access to finance.

Assessment data turns support into a deliberate strategy

The strongest improvements were generally found in internal management (business planning, governance, internal organization) and financial management. But this does not mean every organization improved the same way.

The overall assessment results reflect both the assessment framework, which places significant emphasis on internal management and financial management, and the technical assistance priorities implemented during the program. A program focused on investment readiness would emphasize governance and financial controls, whereas a program focused on market development is more likely to emphasize aggregation, product quality and buyer relationships.

Kenya provides a clear example of context-driven support: many participating dairy cooperatives already sell through the Meru Dairy Union. Because their primary commercial channel is already established through the union, drafting a new standalone marketing strategy was less urgent than improving governance, member management or financial planning. A mechanical reading of the assessment might simply highlight a low marketing score and prescribe redundant marketing training. A context-aware reading asks whether marketing is the right priority for an organization operating within an established union structure. Data always need to be combined with context to turn it into a deliberate support development strategy,

Farmer Organizations should take charge of their own professionalization steps

A central principle is that farmer organizations should take greater ownership of their own business and therefore, their professionalization,, rather than depend mainly on interventions designed by external actors. An organization should understand its own assessment results, own its strengths and weaknesses, discuss priorities and actively shape its development roadmap. This shifts its role from passive recipient of advice to active decision-maker.

Beyond management: why some capabilities take longer to mature

The reassessment scores showed slower progress in areas such as Production (production systems, extension services, collection from members), Operations (storage, logistics) and Markets (marketing). Stakeholders who expect all sub-dimensions to increase linearly at the same pace, might assume technical assistance failed. However, this lag reflects fundamental operational differences.

Many improvements in these areas are likely to require more time or conditions beyond the organization itself. Where internal governance and financial administration can be upgraded relatively quickly through targeted training and policy changes, operational capabilities often depend on external constraints and longer-term investments.

For example, stronger buyer demand fully relies on external market developments, which is beyond anyone’s control. And building storage or other infrastructure facilities, and developing more qualified staff, simply takes multiple production cycles before measurable results become visible.

Capability Dimension	Primary Drivers of Change	Typical Timeline
Internal Management & Governance	Policy updates, training and coaching, administrative habits, internal controls	12–18 Months (Faster internal adoption)
Production, Operations & Markets	Physical infrastructure, extension staff, multi-season yield cycles, external market demand	Multi-Year (Requires capital & external conditions)

Slower progress should therefore not be interpreted as support failed per se — the area may not have been a priority, or improvement may depend on external constraints that lie beyond the farmer organization’s direct control.

Key take-away: Assessment data must always be interpreted in context, not followed like a rigid shopping list. For AgriGRADE, these insight define the next phase of support: targeting cases where physical infrastructure or buyer relationships — rather than internal management capabilities — are the primary binding constraint.

  

Mature farmer organizations do not automatically deliver stronger business results

The reassessment data show that also organizational professionalization and commercial performance do not always improve at the same pace:

• Membership: Total membership grew by 13% in Kenya and 7% in Tanzania, yet active membership declined slightly in both countries over the same period.
• Turnover: Among organizations with comparable financial data, turnover increased by 19% in Kenya and 4% in Tanzania.
• Gross profit:  Gross profit fell by 3% in Kenya but rose by 3% in Tanzania – demonstrating that turnover growth does not automatically yield higher profit margins

These findings highlight that stronger governance and management do not automatically translate into immediate commercial gains.

Long-term commercial success relies on factors beyond an organization’s direct control, including market prices, input costs, and buyer demand. A higher professionalization score does not guarantee immediate commercial success. But it matters because stronger governance, planning and financial management increases an organization’s ability to manage risk, use finance well, respond to market opportunities and sustain growth over time.  

Early signs: support systems can progress with shared infrastructure

The reassessments provide encouraging early evidence for several building blocks of the AgriGRADE approach:

✅ Farmer organizations improved their professionalization, some accessed formal finance for the first time

✅ Technical assistance became more targeted using a common assessment framework

✅ Service provides gained a shared basis for discussing priorities and progress

A handful of organizations accessed formal finance for the first time since baseline. This is encouraging, but the figures are still preliminary and too small to support firm conclusions. That is equally important evidence: it points to the potential of the shared pathway, while showing that the link from stronger organizations to finance still needs to be tested and strengthened.

At the same time, the mixed market, profitability and finance results show that the pathway is not yet fully connected.

• Internal fixes have limits: Costs, market prices and buyer access sit largely outside what internal management improvements can fix on their own.
• Connection is critical: Closing this gap requires linking Assessment and Technical Assistance directly to commercial Market and Finance actors from the start.

How to then, connect the pathway

1. Market opportunities must shape support priorities,
2. Buyers and financial institutions must be engaged early, and
3. The output of each step must directly feed the next.

The next steps in building shared infrastructure

The results from Kenya and Tanzania show that several core elements of AgriGRADE can be applied in practice, while reminding us that building shared infrastructure takes time. Moving forward and away from decades of isolated interventions is a long-term adaptive endeavor, not an overnight fix.

The initial results provide encouraging evidence for six important building blocks:

1. Standardized assessment metrics;
2. Maturity-based segmentation;
3. Targeted technical support;
4. Comparable reassessment tracking;
5. Data-driven learning cycles;
6. Measurable organizational progression.

Demonstrating AgriGRADE as a true sector infrastructure, requires broader scale evidence across more countries, value chains, stakeholders and assessment cycles, and further improvements.

The next phase is already underway: AgriGRADE is currently expanding into Ghana’s cocoa and horticulture sectors to test how the infrastructure travels beyond Kenya and Tanzania.

Ultimately, creating a more efficient farmer organization support sector—less duplicate assessment, less redundant training, and better alignment—is as important as any individual organization’s score. Kenya and Tanzania are an important first chapter. They provide early evidence, reveal where the shared pathway still needs to improve, and create a basis for testing the approach in new contexts. Ghana is one of the next chapters.

  

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