Can social organizations help small farmers in food system transition? Evidence from Kenya

Transition to sustainability is highly demanded, especially in the food sector. Within food system,a specific actor is deemed to be the depository of the knowledge and practices that can underpin the transition to the sustainability of farming system, namely smallholder farmers (Van der Ploeg, 2009). By activating a local network of small farmers, endogenous resources can be recognized and valorized and exploited in a sustainable manner. Social organizations are considered the main tool to undertake a process of “reflexive governance”, as envisaged in the paradigm of Eco-economy (Marsden, 2016). According to it, the sustainability transition should be underpinned by the activation of networks of local actors, which recognize endogenous resources and are able to exploit them by adopting a reflective stance, bringing about changes in the way communities grow and access food. Starting from Marsden’s and Van der Ploeg’s so called “unfolding webs” (2008), this paper is an attempt to investigate the role of social organizations in the small-farming system of GilG (Kenya) and their contribution to the transition of the agricultural system towards sustainability. More specifically, the writer is interested in which kind of farmers’ organizations exist in GilGil area and whether farmers perceive FO as helpful in improving their conditions of work. After a questionnaire submission to farmers, information about FO has been used to build a direct measure of the perceived efficacy of farmers’ organizations with an index. It turned out that FO efficacy is greater for market-oriented farmers, while apparently, they don't represent a supportive tool for consumption-oriented farmers.