access to markets and entrepreneurial skills supported by effective advocacy The proposed project has as overall objective to assist and support small and medium farmers (members of NFFM) through advisory support, business, marketing and innovative capacities development in order to improve their income and welfare.

NFFM aspires to improve the quality and quantity of  services delivered to farmers. At the same time it is a continuous process of enhancement  and improving efficiency of NFFM human resources (consultants) as result of organizational reform ran by NFFM.

NFFM will focus more on small and medium farmers being active and paying members of NFFM and especially to those who are members of created producers groups. These producers groups are more compact and active and these will be assisted better in issues regarding: entrepreneurship, marketing and access to finance. Our global goal is to contribute to the increase of our members incomes. This will be achieved by transfer of knowledge (trainings), applicative consultancy, support in preparing production delivery contracts, assistance to preparation of business plans and other.

Another very important component is the empowerment of young farmers in Moldova. Young people tend to leave the country side seraching for  abetter life in the cities or abroad. However, many realise that city life is not bringing the expected prosperity and decide to go back to rural areas and to make a living out of agriculture. NFFM has started to organise young farmers, so they meet, exchange their experiences and support each other. Empowerment of the young farmers is needed. In order to stimulate some of the young entrepreneurial farmers, NFFM will manage an innovation fund for young farmers, criteria will be defined in the coming months how this fund can be used exactly. The objcetive of the fund is to motivate young farmers to apply innovative ideas, these will be awarded and stimulated to identify and implement these ideas in a better way and to be as an example for other (young) farmers in Moldova.

In order to achieve the main goal of the project, the following sub objectives have been formulated: 
1.	Improvement of services providing capacities and technical assistance to our members (Agriterra component)
2.	Development of business and marketing capacities of farmers (IFAD component)
3.	Enhancement of lobby, advocacy and representing initiatives (Agriterra component)
4.	Strengthening the internal organization such as: communication with farmers, membership database, management skills (Agriterra component)
5.	Development of innovative trends in NFFM through promotion empower and sustain the young farmers (Agriterra component)


Expected result areas are:
• To develop the farmers business abilities and to sustain them in extension or starting of its businesses

• To make farmers to understand as a first step and to get farmers in cooperatives or product associations, also to set the cooperative marketing strategies

• To build and strenghten the trade capacity of farmers or groups of farmers

• To enhance the organizational and management abilities of created Farmers associations or cooperatives

• Involve farmers in decission making process by lobby and advocacy activities 

• To empower young farmers and create conditions for them to start new business in rural area

• Enhancement of agricultural policies – subsidies, banking and credit in agriculture, import and export regulations 


NFFM reorganised its structure and from 11 regional offices only 5 regional offices will be continued since the beginning of 2012. This project is related to new structure in order to make more the work efficient and to reduce the institutional costs.

Three Regional Organizations will be supported with this project:
Orhei, Chisinau and South representing  65% of members of the total 27,000 active and non active members of NFFM.
Specific beneficiaries:
• 16 existent Producers groups (based on specific commodities and 3 value chains-vegetables, fruits and grapes) with potential with another 5 (at least) – 530 members of the groups;
•Young farmers association – 100 members;
•3 Professional associations (grape, vegetables producers and pig breeders)
•Other members and potential members who are not yet active, estimation 700 -800
•NFFM Central (8 engaged personnel/ 3 women) and Regional staffs (3 Regional directors and ICC consultants).

2012
Total budget of the proposed project is  around 198, 000 Euro. The requested contribution of Agriterra is 79,000 Euro; the requested budget from IFAD is 48,000 Euro and NFFM own contribution in this project will be 70,500 Euro which represents around 35 % of this project.

2014-2015 (till end June 2015)
focus will be on supporting NFFM in strengthening its financial management including through advisory support. This should allow NFFM to professionalise its organisation in the field of financial management in order to provide better paid services to its members and attrack new funding for implementation of its strategic plan 2015-2020.

NFFM receives support from Agriterra since 2007. Initially Agriterra provided institutional financing to NFFM, coeving a substantial part of teh overhead costs of NFFM. Due to budget constraints this came to a halt in 2010. This resulted in cutting down of more than 50% of the paid staff members at the regional offices. NFFM realises that it must work on its own financial independency.  Therefore, NFFM has restructured its organisational set and reduced the number of regional offices from 12 to 5 in 2012. 

In 2011, NFFM had two projects with Agriterra: project 5632 with focus on organization strengthening and lobby and advocacy , and project 5764 (IFAD funded) focussing on facilitating access to markets for small and medium farmers  and stimulate economic initiatives of small holders. 

The project for 2012 is to a large extend a continuation of both projects, but in a consolidated way and with a stronger focus on access to markets and stimulation of entrepreneurial activities especially for young farmers. Lobby and advoccay will be continued as well. Organisational strengthening remains a focus area, but less as compared to the past. Focus will be on improving the membership database and improving the self financing capacity of NFFM.

This project contributes to WA 4 (accessing markets and agribusiness development) and innovation (with young farmers), but at the same time NFFM continues its lobby and advocacy activities at the national level. 

In 2013 a continuation of 2012.

In 2014, due to weakness in the financial management it has been decided not to finance a new project but to focus on improvement of the financial management. This should result into a professional functioning financial management system being used at all levels within the organisation. 

The main ingredients in the financial management component are: 
- involving an external party (Euromol) which will set up the new financial management system
- purchase of software and hardware for a state-of-the-art financial management system
- recruting a financial manager which will replace the finance staff of NFFM
- training and capacity building of central and regional staff in effective financial management.

Contributions from We Effect, Agriterra and NFFM are foreseen.

In 2015 (till June 2015) an extension of the financial management implementation programme is foreseen. The following activities are planned:
1.	Development of the financial management including the appointment of a new financial manager.
2.	Hiring a profesional local consultant from Euromol for guiding the financial manager. 
3.	Development of the architecture of administrative organisation including the implementation an integration of an accounting software at national and regional level with the help of Euromol.
4.	Supply Regional Offices with necessary equipment and network
5.	Training of NFFM staff in applying new software by Euromol and in proper registration of primary data into the system.
6.	Develop Strategic Plan for the period 2015-2020 in order to work towards financial self sustainability; -	Defining the communication strategy (survey) and dissemination with staff; -	Strategy for own income generation (membership fees increasing) - Brainstorming with members and expert – one session; -	Feasibility study of the strategic plan implementation.
7.	Elaboration of standard operational proceedings for related operational system. 
8.	Administration of loans and NFFM membership registration system with support from Euromol.

This results into:
1.	The administrative and financial management of NFFM is adequate and corespond with We Effect’s, Agriterra’s and NFFM board and members requirements. 
2.	The strategic plan is used as the basic guideline for NFFM members, board and staff to work towards self sustainability in the period 2015-2020 while for external funding agencies the strategic plan functions as the backbone for future project support. 
3.	The staff of NFFM, including the newly appointed financial manager, are able to effectively implement financial policies and internal control procedures.
4.	Membership registration completed 100% in the new software before end of June 2015
5.	Loan registration of members completed 100% in the new software before end of June 2015

To assist and support small and medium farmers (members of NFFM) through advisory support, business, marketing and innovative capacities development in order to improve their income and welfare.