Saraguro: Working magic on small budgets for small-scale farmers in Ecuador

A 13-year project funded for less than USD 600,000 provides millions of dollars in benefits by taking improved varieties and cropping practices directly to smallholder farmers in a remote valley of southern Ecuador.

A modest project during 1995-2008 ended up bringing USD 2 million per year in profits—many times its nominal funding—to farm families in the remote Saraguro Valley of Ecuador, according to a final report on the effort. Participants included thousands of households in 21 largely-indigenous communities, who gained access to improved crop seed and technical support from CIMMYT, the International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA), and the International Potato Center (CIP). The project drew on funding from INIA-Spain and CIDA-Canada, as well as leadership and community-level work by Ecuador’s National Institute of Agricultural and Livestock Research (INIAP).

"We started with a single farmer who adopted an improved barley variety and eventually got more than 3,000 farm families involved," says INIAP cereals specialist Jorge Coronel, who led the project and most of the time lived in and worked out of a two-room house and storage facility near the Saraguro village square. "Average incomes of participating households went from 1.2 to 3.0 USD per day, after switching from traditional farming systems to the improved varieties and practices we promoted."

Diversifying, profiting, forming leaders
Coronel and INIAP legume breeder Luís Eduardo Minchala Guaman leveraged funds of less than USD 30,000 per year, close partnerships with CGIAR centers like CIMMYT, hard-earned local contacts and trust, and farmer-participatory approaches. They helped farmers obtain and use improved seed of barley, wheat, maize, and potatoes; fertilizer and farm credit; and more sustainable and diversified farming systems that improved profits, nutrition, and natural resource use. Finally, they helped farmers to access markets for selling produce and to attend courses in farm technology and local organization. "We wanted to make sure that achievements outlive the project's life-span, so we helped form a network of farmer leaders from each community who continue to test and spread new practices with peers," says Coronel. "The increase in average crop yields through the project has been dramatic; in the case of wheat alone, farmers who were getting 750 kilograms per hectare of grain in 1995 harvested 2.7 tons per hectare in 2007—a 260 percent increase."

Other improvements introduced under the project included 6 water-harvesting reservoirs and micro-reservoirs for supplemental irrigation, use of grass borders to control erosion on the region's steep slopes, value-added processing of farm products, and improved grain storage facilities and practices. "At least half the families in the region now sow certified seed of their crops that is produced either on-site or at INIAP's Chuquipata research station, which has also been instrumental in project achievements," says Coronel.

Inhabitants find livelihoods on-farm
With approximately 31,000 inhabitants—nearly half with direct indigenous descent—plus a rough topography and relative isolation from major urban areas, Saraguro was considered one of Ecuador's poorest zones. "We've estimated an out-migration rate now of about 25 percent among the 18-to-35 year age group, as compared to 50 or 60 percent for the youth of other, similar zones in Ecuador," says Coronel. "At one time, roughly half the adults of Saraguro regularly left the zone each year to seek seasonal work so their families could survive. Now far fewer farmers say they need to leave, which implies a significant improvement in agricultural sustainability and local organization."

The Saraguro project's chief architect was late Ecuadoran scientist Hugo Vivar, who retired in 2000 after 16 years of service in the ICARDA/CIMMYT Barley Breeding Program for Latin America, plus 9 years of service at CIMMYT.

For more information: Hans Braun, Director, Global Wheat Program (h.j.braun@cgiar.org)