Achocalla is a highland valley situated a few kilometres away from La Paz, Bolivia. There, small scale farmers produce about 20 % of the vegetables consumed by almost two million people in the cities of La Paz and El Alto. In the spring of 2010, Achocalla’s Señor de Mayo Square became the backdrop of the first small producers’ fair, which kick-started a nation-wide cycle of agroecological fairs aimed at fostering exchange between peasants, small producers, and consumers and to promote the consumption of agroecological foods.

Short chains

Bolivia’s political transition of 2006 led to a favourable regulatory and legal framework for promotion and support of agroecological production. This includes a number of laws promoting food sovereignty and a national technical standard for Participatory Guarantee Systems (PGSs). One result has been the development of short chains, with agroecological standards guaranteed through participatory processes. There are municipal PGS, of which the bio-fair in Achocalla is an example. There are also communal PGS, promoting economic solidarity amongst indigenous groups; private PGS suitable for small producer organisations; and organisational PGS suitable for larger producer organisations.

The municipality of Achocalla set up their PGS in 2012, involving 275 families grouped into 13 communities. The agroecological guarantee committee of Achocalla Municipality (CGEMA) is responsible for running the PGS, and is made up of producers, processors, service providers and consumers. The PGS has created direct relationships between producers and consumers, with benefits for both. For the farmers, the PGS has improved their chances of accessing differentiated local markets and raised their profile as agroecological producers. Meanwhile, citizens are no longer reduced to passive consumers.But in spite of these achievements, the effectiveness of agroecological practices remains difficult to prove as indicators differ according to local circumstances and to who makes the assessment. This inconsistency compounds neglect from policy makers the world over, who often regard the idea of meeting future food and nutrition demands through agroecology as nonsense.

Proving impact

Another food system

During Bolivia’s neoliberal period (1985-2005), agricultural production was oriented to providing cash crops for the oil industry and white sugar for export to neighbouring countries. After the political transition of 2006, a new approach based on the BuenVivir (good living) philosophy resulted in a new legal framework based on the principle that to reduce global poverty, it is not enough to simply produce more food but that food should be of high quality, safe for human health, biodiversity friendly, and accessible and available to all.

Bolivia’s political transition not only yielded Law No 3525 for the Promotion of Ecological Agricultural Production and Non-timber Forestry, but also the Food Revolution law, the law for the Promotion of Healthy Food Habits, and recently enacted law on Economic Organisations of Indigenous and Peasant Peoples of Bolivia (OECAs), which addresses fundamental issues such as the importance of family farming, collaboration, food sovereignty and the prioritisation of locally sourced foods. Since the political transition, some 7000 producers have received training in agroecology of which 650 producers are now classed as agroecological farmers and 2700 producers classed as in transition, totalling around 3400 agroecological farmers in the highland, valley and tropical ecoregions.

In 2012, the NGO AVSFBolivia started a project named Mercados Campesinos (peasant markets) to assess the development and functioning of these new markets and to inform policy makers at the National Ecologic Production Council. They assessed three municipal PGS, Achocalla, Batallas (La Paz) and Caracollo (Oruro), and one private PGS, Eco-Feria in Cochabamba.

The assessment approach was based on four dimensions of food security – availability, access, utilisation and stability – and happiness. The happiness dimension, referring to the level of satisfaction of all actors in the chain was the most novel dimension of the assessment. Producers, processers and consumers were all surveyed and asked to score indicators relating to each dimension of food security.

Producers and consumers were asked different questions, reflecting their different roles in the PGS. For instance, for the happiness dimension producers were asked to rate, on a scale from one to five, how happy they are with their production, transformation and commercialisation tasks. While for this same dimension consumers were asked to rate their degree of satisfaction with the agroecological produce. Similarly, for the access dimension producers were asked about their household food expenditure budget and to rate the ratio between own production and expenditure and consumers were asked about their frequency of visits to agroecological fairs.

Happy municipalities

The assessment enabled comparison between the four PGS and helped to explain reasons for different impact. Farmers, consumers and other actors in the Achocalla PGS expressed the most satisfaction. Sergio Quispe, the Vice President of CGEMA explains: “Achocalla is the star agroecologic municipality because all actors in the value chain work together and are supported by the municipal agroecology and social development platform.” The project showed how the short chain impacts farmers and consumers in a number of ways.

“I am very happy because I can feed my sons and sell our surplus production”

For example, Jose Copa, a farmer and handyman in Achocalla enjoys the reduced transportation and transaction costs: “I am very happy because I can feed my sons and sell our surplus production twice a month at the bio-fair.” And Jaime A. Pereira, a regular visitor to the bio-fair exclaims that, “I can find healthy vegetables, honey and cheese that look better, are fresher and cheaper than in supermarkets.” Farmers’ access to valleys and highlands in Achocalla enables diversified production and this also explains their satisfaction with their role as producers.

In general, the three municipality PGS had more positive impacts than the private PGS and this is largely explained by current policy which favours municipal PGS. The actors in municipal PGS have better access to financial support and other initiatives such as public procurement programmes. Moreover, many of the members of Eco-Feria, the private PGS, specialise in value-adding such as preparation of jams, encurtidos (pickles) and vegan foods and are not diversified producers as is the case in the other municipal PGS assessed.

The Mercados Campesinos project was able to prove the importance of short chains for both producers and consumers. The results are useful because they capture a whole agroecological chain, from farm to market, and take into account happiness as well as different dimensions of food security. The project provides insights for further public policies that support family farming and stronger relationships between peasants and consumers.

Eduardo Lopez Rosse (elopez@catie.ac.cr) is a researcher on environmental and social certification schemes. He works at the Department for Consumers’ Affairs of the Autonomous Municipality of Cochabamba, Bolivia (GAMC).

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By efficiently articulating new developments in information technology, infrastructures and facilities for the long distance transportation of goods, and by exploiting changes in the institutional frameworks that regulate the domestic and international markets, transnational corporations have come to exert an unprecedented level of control on the configuration of agri-food systems – or on the flows that link the production, processing, distribution and consumption of food.

Philip McMichael refers to this as the corporate food regime, and points out that this has further promoted and intensified the scientific and technological paradigm of the Green Revolution, with the introduction of genetically modified organisms (GMOs), the rapid and uncontrolled expansion of monocultures and the subsequent standardisation of agricultural landscapes.

An equally massive standardisation process has been experienced on the consumer’s side. The political and economic power accumulated by major players in food retailing has led to the imposition of industrialised junk food, the homogenisation of diets and, by the same token, the destruction of local markets through which family farmers have traditionally sold their produce.

The growing homogenisation of production and consumption practices is both a cause and a consequence of the emergence of what Jan Douwe van der Ploeg calls the “food empires”, the governance mechanisms for food and agriculture at a global scale. Truly international, their power increasingly extends to the economic and political arenas, and they now capture an ever larger share of the value added along the food chain.

Local alternatives for global challenges

The global dissemination of “nowhere food” (or food whose origins can hardly be traced) is not the only visible trend. In parallel, and developing as a form of resistance to this dominant trend and its negative effects, creative strategies to relocalise and recontextualise agri-food systems are emerging all around the world. In this sense, markets are the arena where power struggles are taking place between the contrasting and coexisting structures and mechanisms that shape the production and consumption of food.

On the one hand, there is the political and ideological influence of agri-businesses on national states and multilateral organisations. On the other hand, there are emerging social processes that seek to rebuild, revitalise and diversify market circuits that promote a more equitable distribution of the wealth generated through agriculture, and to simultaneously alter the metabolism of agri-food systems so that the flows of matter and energy are more sustainable. Whether in Brazil (p. 10) or the Netherlands (p. 18), these examples are becoming more widespread and visible, with producers, consumers and their organisations playing an important role.

In this sense, the development of local markets (or short chains) should be understood as an active social process that aims to increase people’s autonomy and independence from the “very visible hands” of multinational agri-food businesses on the global market. The political dimension of this emerging process construct is increasingly expressed by the concept of “food sovereignty”, a concept that is rooted in the understanding that the access to food of one’s choice is a basic human right.

Beyond monetary value

Achieving increasing levels of governance over markets is one of the main tenets of the movements, organisations and individuals who promote agro-ecology around the world. Without a doubt, the ability to scale up agro-ecological experiences, both socially and geographically, directly depends on the construction and defence of viable marketing channels that link production and consumption together, and establish stable and transparent relationships between these two economic spheres.

The advancement of an agro-ecological perspective for rural development does not follow conventional economic logic, defined in terms of competitiveness and vertical social relationships, but crucially depends on regulated markets that stimulate horizontal relations and co-operation among social actors. In this sense, these markets are reproduced and (re)structured around social values that go beyond the monetary dimension.

This edition of Farming Matters presents some of the meaningful experiences that are taking place in different countries and in so doing furthers the debate around markets and rural development. What strategies are farmers and their organisations implementing as alternatives to the dominance of large agribusiness corporations? How do farmers articulate strategies that enable them to become more resilient in the face of the uncertainties and threats arising from the volatility of agricultural prices, food crises and global climate change? How do local markets and shortcuts to commercialisation and marketing contribute to generating more sustainable livelihoods for family farmers? How are family farmers’ innovations in organisational models shaping new economies? How can farmers strengthen autonomy within markets? And what is the role of states in interacting with these emerging issues?

Paulo Petersen

Based in Rio de Janeiro, Paulo Petersen works as Executive Director of AS-PTA. He is vice-president of the Brazilian Agro-ecology Association, and is also the editor of Agriculturas, our sister publication in Brazil.
E-mail: paulo@aspta.org.br

References
McMichael, P., 2009. A food regime genealogy. Journal of Peasant Studies, no 36(1).

Van der Ploeg, J.D., 2008. The new peasantries: Struggles for autonomy and sustainability in an era of empire and globalization. London, Earthscan.

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Article sponsored by the Oxfam Novib / Hivos Knowledge Programme

Most economic activities in the rural areas are related to the region’s biodiversity and to the services this biodiversity provides. Although many of these activities contribute to the loss of this biodiversity, a number of them have a positive effect, while at the same time providing for higher incomes or economic profit.

The generation of incomes or profits, at the same time, can have a large influence in the development of new initiatives that contribute to the conservation of a region’s biodiversity.

The PESA model

PELUM, or Participatory Ecological Land Use Management, is a network of more than 230 civil society organisations, representing ten countries in East, Central and Southern Africa. Since it was founded in 1995, it has worked with small-scale farmers in the promotion of ecological land use practices as a way of empowering communities and simultaneously reducing the loss of the region’s biodiversity. Working together with the East and Southern African Farmers Forum (ESAFF), we developed the PESA Agro Enterprise Marketing Model (while the word “pesa” means money in Kiswahili, the title takes the “P” from PELUM and “ESA” from ESAFF).

Various marketing models were selected and looked at in detail in a consultative process involving the ESAFF farmers and the PELUM extension staff, comparing them with the “theory” as presented in, for example, the FAO Farmer Business Schools model.

Participants in four different countries (Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda) carried out a study of these different marketing models, paying attention to the role played by different stakeholders and carefully taking into account how each case succeeded in helping farmers market their products. Results were shared in a meeting in 2012 in Kigali, from where a task force took the assignment of developing a proposal. The group came up with the “PESA marketing model”.

The model embraces a 6-stage process that encourages farmers to interact with the market through a “learning by doing” approach, engaging with the different stakeholders and developing skills in a step-by-step way. In short, these steps include (a) the formation or strengthening of a group, (b) the introduction of marketing and business concepts, (c) the identification and prioritisation of market opportunities, (d) the identification of potential investors, (e) the development of a business plan, and (f) the provision of (and access to) specific services.

Following the same “learning by doing” approach, we started a pilot project to try this model in the field – and learn from its implementation. This was planned for two years, after which all the PELUM member organisations will introduce it in order to facilitate the commercialization processes of their members. The lessons will be applied depending on the product and context of marketing.

Trying it out

Beekeeping is as a good example of an economic activity that, while resulting in high-profits, also contributes positively in terms of a region’s biodiversity. Farmers in Kenya, for example, prefer to let the bees feed from natural sources and not from sugar syrup. Farmers also prefer their bees not to travel long distances to look for food, since they easily get tired or lost after travelling far. So they have deliberately planted a diverse selection of trees, shrubs and flowers in the areas where the bee hives are kept. Some prominent varieties of bee forage trees, shrubs fruits and flowers that have been propagated include Croton spp., Acacia spp., mathenge, neem, sisal, Aloe vera, citrus trees, mangoes and bananas, and also crops such as millets or sorghum.

Most of the shrubs or trees would have otherwise been cut down to make charcoal – especially the Acacia trees which can be sold for a good price. The community is also keen on adding more tree and shrub species that are found to be of medicinal or therapeutic value in their natural state so that they serve a double role – for the bees and the community members.

Located in the district of Baringo, in the Rift Valley province in western Kenya, the Kapkuikui Livestock Self Help Group (KLSHG) focuses on bee keeping and the production of honey in an ecological friendly way, maintaining a rich crop and tree diversity as a source of food for the bees (see box).

Every year, the group produces an average of 2.5 tons of honey; half during the main harvest season (November to January) and half during the minor season (June and July).

Trying out our PESA model, we started by identifying the market opportunities for this honey in the area. A smaller team of six members conducted a market chain assessment, trying to assess and understand the purchasing practices, the terms and conditions followed, and the main demands or interests of consumers.

A “business market facilitator” from the Baraka Agricultural College helped making the initial contacts. After visiting and interacting with 4 supermarkets, 4 pharmacy shops and 3 hotels, the group secured many new orders to supply buyers with honey.

Even more important, the process helped the group learn about the need of a stronger “business relationship” between producers and consumers, and the minimum conditions and requirements. Group members discovered the advantages of preparing a detailed business plan which includes adding value to their products, and thus expanding their market options. Furthermore, they saw the need to invest money in machinery or equipment, and the importance of their organisation to implement their plans.

Looking into the future

The PESA model has been tried for 12 months, and will continue for another 12 months. Although the pilot project is not yet finished, the initial results are very promising. The knowledge and skills acquired by the KLSHG members through the 6-stage approach have empowered the group. During this period, KLSHG has shown that higher incomes and the conservation of an area’s biodiversity can be mutually supporting efforts. If these initial results prove to be indicative of the success of the approach, all 230 PELUM members will introduce and implement the model in their own specific context. In the meantime, the participatory process of learning by doing is already helping other organisations. The PELUM experience demonstrates that the participatory process of analysis, development and implementation of an innovative marketing approach is a powerful tool for positive change.

Maryleen Micheni

Maryleen Micheni works as Senior Programme Officer at PELUM, Kenya. The “markets and trade” thematic group of the Agrobiodiversity@knowledged programme would like to invite readers to send case studies describing other marketing process. Focusing on agrobiodiversity products, these case studies should consider the financial returns, the commercial viability of the enterprise, or the emergence of public-private partnerships. These case studies need not only be success stories. Please send them to Maryleen Micheni (maryleen@pelum.net) and Willy Douma (wdouma@hivos.nl).

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