INTRODUCTION:

Farmers Development Union (FADU), an NGO, is a rural development Organization, formed, owned, directed, governed and financed by about 500,000 rural Nigerians, who are its members. Other support donors to FADU program are Ford Foundation, EZE and EEC.

The main thrust of FADU ' s development program is to reach the low-resourced poor and vulnerable groups with basic economic and social services for improved rural income, nutrition, employment and living condition. Its program activities have been focused on group development, aimed at rural peasants, for community participation and enhancement of their managerial capacities to operate small-scale farming and non-farming enterprises. This approach is to promote community participation as a means of overcoming constraints on individual micro-producers. FADU has made tremendous resource concentration on poverty elimination, creation of jobs, and advancement of women.

The guiding principles in FADU ' s programme activities are:

• Community group ' s responsibility
• Social and economic sustainability of project
• Group cost recovery and financial capacity building
• Project cost recovery and operational efficiency
• Human resource development
• Poverty alleviation
• Rural productive activities.

Guided by these principles, FADU has been giving financial services, technical support, training and marketing support services to rural producers operating in the Nigerian informal economic sector. The long-term goal of the organization ' s programme is to assist this class of informal producers, into the mainstream of the Nigerian production economy. To achieve this long term goal, FADU has joined the E Fair Trade Network to achieve collective buying and selling for its members as well as to facilitate obtaining wholesale credit facilities for facilitating FADU members activities.

Since it ' s formation in 1989, FADU has:

1 . Mobilized, trained and technically and financially assisted about 50,000 productive rural network of groups (called societies), mostly women (87%), in villages and semi-Urban across 28 states of the Nigerian federation.

2 . Built a very strong self-managed and self-financed grassroots institutional formations (referred to in its own terms as Groups, Societies, Districts and Zones) which have become bases for FADU ' s savings and credit scheme, agricultural projects, rural health, environment and literacy awareness that are facilitated by the Organization.

3 . Disseminated (through its credit scheme, training and technical assistance) low cost, locally fabricated and adapted medium scale technologies for micro-producers in the remote villages across the country. Among the technologies are manually pedaled Treadle Pump for small Fadama Farmers, improved palm oil, cassava and groundnut oil processing equipment.

4. Created over 500,000 new jobs, since 1989 in remote villages, considered otherwise as marginal and disadvantaged areas.

5  Consistently demonstrated commitment to fostering partnerships to fight hunger and poverty in Nigeria. Current evidence of this is the on-going development Co-operation the World Bank, IFAD (International Fund for Agricultural Development), UNDP, State Agricultural Development Programmes (ADPs).

6. The Union also builds a network of 159 replicate-CBOs, which receive FADU's training and technical assistance, to upgrade their program management skills.

FADU has a permanent core of development professionals. These Staff ' s, collectively combine extensive experience designing and managing community targeted development programs in Nigeria with background in agriculture, business, finance, community development, rural sociology and food technology. FADU can draw on the talents of 346 program employees, consultants and volunteers across Nigeria. FADU can access expertise in other areas such as affordable processing technology design management; agro-forestry; small and farmer-managed irrigation schemes; group-managed enterprise development; agricultural finance; supply, production, processing and marketing; savings and credit program design and management; human resource development and training for grassroots targeted programs; institutional development schemes for community based organizations etc.

Through its program, FADU has strengthened participation and facilitated the involvement of the intended beneficiaries in project design, implementation, project cost recovery and management. Its grassroots involvement approach has also enabled beneficiaries to have greater control of the project resources, thereby maximizing the proportion of resources reaching the poor. FADU has given increased emphasis to promoting ownership projects by the beneficiaries.

In the three states, Oyo, Ogun and Osun, where the Union has the highest concentration of members, about 58%, FADU has been able to cover the operational cost of its program. Nevertheless, the Organization still face big challenges in the areas of meeting the credit needs of its members including replicates, build members in other 25 states, where it has presence, to the status of three project states, and reducing the unsustainable farming practices among members.