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CIAT Carries Out Project in Alliance
with National Partners of Peru and Bolivia
Information and Knowledge
Management for Rural Innovation
Using the concept of learning alliances as strategy, CIAT
has been working with local and national organizations of
Peru and Bolivia since August 2005 to consolidate an integrated
approach to the generation of knowledge that empowers rural
innovation processes.
The project, "Information and Knowledge Management for
Rural Innovation" (GestionCIP), aims to support Comprehensive
Clusters of Projects, one of the initiatives of the W.K.
Kellogg Foundation.
More
information (in Spanish)
For more information on learning alliances, see www.alianzasdeaprendizaje.org
(in Spanish)
Contact: Dora
Patricia Arévalo
Proceedings Now On-line
Technical Centre for Agricultural
and Rural Cooperation (CTA) Conference: Strengthening Market
Signals and Institutions
The proceedings of the CTA
Conference "Expert Consultation on Market Information
Systems and Agricultural Commodities Exchanges: Strengthening
Market Signals and Institutions", held in the Netherlands
on 28-30 November 2005, are now available on-line.
The Conference continues virtually through an electronic
forum accessible at: www.dgroups.org/groups/cta/mis/index.cfm
The CTA Conference itself discussed issues on the new trade
environment and the plight of smallholder farmers; marketing
needs according to governmental and trading entities, and
farmers; innovations in market information services; marketing
tools to strengthen demand; and auctions, warehouses receipts,
and agricultural commodity exchanges. Participants came from
the CTA itself, other advanced research organizations, and
national entities from 15 countries, including 8 in Africa
and 3 in Europe.
Download the proceedings:
Preliminary
pages (87 kb)
Session
1, p. 2-22 (107 kb)
Session
2, p. 23-46 (117 kb)
Session
3, p. 47-69 (120 kb)
Session
4, p. 70-126 (365 kb)
Session
5, p. 127-131 (1263 kb)
Session
5, p. 132-176 (1367 kb)
Session
6, p. 177-244 (237 kb)
Contacts: Shaun
Ferris and Vincent Fautrel
CIAT Contributes
to a KIT-IIRR Publication
Chain Empowerment—Supporting
African Farmers to Develop Markets
 Royal
Tropical Institute (KIT),
Faida MaLi, and International Institute of Rural Reconstruction
(IIRR),
2006
This is a book of hope for Africa’s smallholder farmers.
It shows how they can earn more from their crops and livestock
by taking control over the value chains they are part of—chains
that link them with consumers in Africa’s towns and cities,
as well as in other countries.
See Mamud.com
for downloading
New Publication
Enabling Rural
Innovation in Africa Guide Series
A Market Facilitator's Guide to Participatory Agroenterprise
Development. ERI Guide 2
 This
manual is a product of the experiences and lessons learned
while implementing agroenterprise
projects in eastern and southern Africa. The manual aims
to provide market facilitators with skills in participatory
methods that will enable them to help farmers engage with
markets. It provides a guide to identifying and evaluating
market opportunities and for selecting the most attractive
business options a given community may have. It is intended
for use by any institution interested in building their staff
capacity in market facilitation.
Download the guide
by sections.
Download the complete
guide (1641 kb).
Contact: Carlos
F. Ostertag and Mark
Lundy
Caucan Farmers Aclaimed
 Six
Caucan farmers were praised for their work before the Minister
of Communications for Colombia and an audience of more than
200 people. The occasion was the inauguration, held in Bogotá,
16 March, of the Colombian
Observatory of Technologies for Information and Communication.
The group of small-scale farmers belonged to the Communication
Agents Association of Suárez (AGECOS, its Spanish acronym)
and was chosen from among 120 aspirants from around the country
to describe their activities. The theme of their presentation
was their experiences with the Information System for Rural
Business Development (SIDER),
a project supported by CIAT. The six farmers were Sandra Carabalí,
Hermes Ibarra, Joselino Carabalí, Carlos Arturo Viveros,
Genfidel Yotengo, and Aurelino Carabalí.
Download the report
on the project (in Spanish, 34 kb).
Contacts: Jhon
Jairo Hurtado, Dora
Patricia Arévalo, and Odilia
Mayorga
A New Learning Cycle Is Launched
in Central America
GIAR and SIDER: Two Tools for Sustainability
 CIAT's
Rural Agroenterprise Development Project has launched a new
method for exchanging knowledge between partners of the Project
on Alliances for Learning. This learning cycle, which integrates
different organizations from El Salvador, Honduras, and Nicaragua,
seeks to share dynamic strategies for innovation with small
and medium-scale farmers. Two methodologies are used: Agents
of Innovation for Rural Agroindustry (GIAR,
its Spanish acronym) and Information System for Rural Business
Development (SIDER).
It was initiated in Central America in February 2006.
More
information (in Spanish)
Contact: Jhon
Jairo Hurtado and Érika
Eliana Mosquera, Facilitators of this cycle
Visit the Web site of Learning
Alliances (in Spanish).
Cyberspace
and the Rural Marketplace
 Development
partners, farmer groups, and other actors in chains for high-value
products are keenly aware of the need for stronger links with
multiple sources of market-related information. Exciting opportunities
to strengthen information services are being created by the
gradual spread of Internet access and other new information
and communications technologies (ICTs) in developing countries.
See the complete
text in the latest issue of our corporate annual report,
CIAT in Focus 2004-2005: Getting a Handle on High-Value
Agriculture.
Contact: Jhon
Jairo Hurtado and Odilia
Mayorga
Learning
Alliances for Agroenterprise Development
 Farmers
need direct assistance with many aspects of agroenterprise
development, especially organizational and economic aspects.
Through "learning alliances" with Catholic Relief
Services (CRS),
CARE
International, SNV
Netherlands Development Organisation, and other major
international development agencies, CIAT and its partners
are developing and testing a comprehensive participatory approach
to helping farmers design, set up, and manage small agroenterprises.
See the complete
text in the latest issue of our corporate annual report,
CIAT in Focus 2004-2005: Getting a Handle on High-Value
Agriculture.
Contact: Mark Lundy
Getting
a Handle on High-Value Agricultural Products
A
group of about 40 experts in all aspects of high-value agricultural
products—from production to processing and marketing—met
at CIAT headquarters in early October to help the CGIAR address
the question of how the poor, especially neglected groups
such as rural women, can benefit from growing markets for
these products. Convened by the Global Forum for Agricultural
Research (GFAR)
and the CGIAR
Science Council, the workshop was organized by their secretariats
in collaboration with CIAT, the World Vegetable Center (AVRDC),
the International Plant Genetic Resources Institute (Bioversity
International), and the International Federation of Agricultural
Producers (IFAP).
The
meeting was an important first joint initiative following
the Science Council’s recent decision to establish “reducing
poverty through agricultural diversification and emerging
opportunities for high-value commodities or products”
as one of five priorities for the research of the international
centers during the period 2005-2015. With this aim in view,
workshop participants moved toward a shared understanding
of what HVPs are, reviewed strategies used in different regions
for linking smallholders to HVP markets, identified high-priority
issues for a shared research agenda, and began creating informal
networks and alliances for addressing key themes.
Download the workshop
report (365 kb).
Manual Series on the Territorial Approach
to Rural
Agro-enterprise Development
 This
series of manuals, entitled Rural Agro-enterprise Development,
are designed to address the entrepreneurial development needs
of institutions that support rural communities. The five documents
published to date include the following topics:
- A strategy for Rural Agro-enterprise development
- Developing partnerships, territorial analysis and planning
together
- Identifying and assessing market opportunities for small-scale
rural producers
- Strategies to improve the competitiveness of market chains
for smallholder producers
- Collective marketing for small-scale producers
Manual users are encouraged to interpret and adapt the contents
of these manuals to local marketing conditions, available
resources, local social dynamics, and the anticipated scale
of implementation.
More information on and download
of the manuals
Contact: Mark Lundy
New
Book
Scaling
Up and Out: Achieving Widespread Impact through Agricultural
Research
 This
book is based on experiences with "scaling up and out"
presented at CIAT's 2002 Annual Review by the Center's scientists
and partners. This new approach to agricultural research and
development (R&D) aims to ensure that R&D activities
achieve widespread, lasting, and positive impact on the rural
poor in terms of sustainability and equity. Through various
case studies, the book discusses issues such as how to achieve
widespread impact with R&D results, tools, institutionalizing
successful procedures, and innovation and its sustainability.
María
Verónica Gottret and Mark Lundy from the Rural
Agroenterprise Development Project contributed with
the following chapters:
- Twenty
Years of Cassava Innovation in Colombia: Scaling Up under
Different Political, Economic, and Social Environments,
María Verónica Gottret and Bernardo
Ospina Patiño
- Learning
Alliances with Development Partners: A framework for Scaling
Out Research Results, Mark Lundy
Download
the publication (1078 kb).
To order copies, see our publications
catalog.
Prompting Rural
Producers towards a Fairer International Trade
 To celebrate
International Day of Fair Trade (8 May), the Project launched
Information Service on Fair Trade.
This computer application aims to support and disseminate
this theme among NGOs, development organizations (and through
these, the producers), state entities, students, professionals,
and society in general.
Users will
find a didactic information service that will help them easily
and quickly understand the operation of fair trade (through
contents, documents, and categorized links), the close relationship
between organic agriculture and fairness, and how to contact
organizations (South and North) who participate in the fair
trade movement (a list of organizations is given).
This tool began developing in 1998, when the fair trade movement
took off in Europe and North America, and when clear interest
was shown by some rural development organizations in Latin
America and the Caribbean to directly link small producers
to international trade. The producers could then by-pass traditional
intermediaries and operate under the concepts of what is social,
ethical, economic, and environmental within the rubric of
fair trade.
We offer this tool in the hope of contributing to the growth
of commercial exchanges within this segment of international
trade.
 To read about the application,
click here: Information Service on Fair Trade
(in Spanish).
Contact: Carlos Felipe Ostertag, Project
Coordinator at CIAT headquarters, Colombia, and for the Andean
Region
Sixth
CRS-CIAT Agroenterprise Development Meeting, Nairobi, Kenya
 From
5-9 June, Catholic
Relief Services (CRS) and CIAT held the sixth agroenterprise
learning alliance workshop in eastern Africa, in Nairobi,
Kenya. Thirty-five participants from CRS country offices and
their partners from Uganda, northern Sudan, Ethiopia, Madagascar,
Kenya, Burundi, and Tanzania were in attendance.
The focus of this workshop was to review the performance of
the teams over the past 16 months in terms of their agroenterprise
activities and performance. The meeting particularly focussed
on a series of market chain studies that the country groups
had recently undertaken in a range of crops.
Key outputs and recommendations were highlighted from this
workshop:
- The EA learning alliance had made significant progress
and all country teams are making significant progress in
enhancing and promoting the agroenterprise approach in their
agricultural sector interventions.
- New CRS agroenterprise projects have been designed and
funded in Madagascar, Tanzania, Burundi, Ethiopia, and Uganda
based on agroenterprise methods and tools.
- Uganda and Burundi requested differentiated AED processes
for "non conflict areas" and the "high conflict
severe relief conditions".
- All countries agreed to set up an on-line monitoring system
to track ongoing progress.
- The East African countries are committed to providing
case studies into a forthcoming book on the CRS-CIAT experience,
and CIAT will play a leading role in developing papers and
working towards a write shop for agroenterprises with the
CRS EARO office.
- Micro-finance is being integrated into the farmer group
process, focussing on savings and internal loan communities
(SILC). This process is being assessed as a new entry point
for agroenterprises, particularly for the poorest farmer
groups.
- The results of the Advanced Study Tour was presented by
Geoff Heinrich from CRS headquarters in Baltimore, and there
are plans to hold a first CRS-CIAT write shop in this area
in Baltimore from 26-30 June, 2006.
- At the end of the six learning alliance meetings, CRS
now wants to shift gear into an action alliance to be started
later in 2006.
Contacts: CIAT: Elly
Kaganzi and Shaun
Ferris. CRS: Tom
Remington
Workshop on Learning Alliances in the Andean Region
 An
international workshop on learning alliances "Rural Enterprise
Development for Sustainable Livelihoods: Building a Learning
Community for the Andean Region" was held from 16 to
18 June 2004 at CIAT headquarters in Cali, Colombia.
The workshop served as scenario to jointly design a proposal
to build a learning community on rural enterprise development
for the Andean region and thus contribute to the achievement
of sustainable livelihoods in the region's rural areas. The
workshop also aimed to establish and strengthen relationships
among potential members of the "Learning Alliances for
the Andean Region" project.
Visit the Workshop's
Web site and the Learning
Alliances in Central America platform (both in Spanish).
Contact: María
Verónica Gottret, Workshop Coordinator
Coffee Growing is Special in Yorito
 José
Casildo Palma and Fausto Banegas Robles are both smallholder
organic farmers of the Yorito region in Honduras. Recently,
they won awards for being among the country’s 20 best
gourmet coffee producers.
The two farmers won their awards after
entering a national competition conducted by the Honduran
Institute of Coffee (IHCAFE) and the Association of Gourmet
Coffees of Honduras (ACEH). Their beans were included among
the 800 samples of the best of the country’s gourmet
coffees that were presented to a jury of 15 international
and 5 national coffee tasters.
Both Banegas Robles (who took 15th place)
and Casildo Palma (20th place) are members of the Agricultural
Cooperative of Organic Producers and Exporters of Horizontes
de La Peña Ltd (CAPEOHPEL). The Cooperative, which produces
organic coffee in Yorito, was established as a result of an
analysis of the coffee production chain carried out jointly
by the region’s farmers and CIAT’s Rural Agroenterprise
Development (RAD) Project.
A most promising result of CIAT’s
methodology is that coffee growers can now market their produce
at higher prices, as can the farmers of CAPEOHPEL. Currently,
the Cooperative is negotiating the sale of its entire harvest
for a value of US$90 per sack. This price is more than 100%
of the local price, and 36% more than the price of conventional
coffee being sold through the New York Stock Exchange.
Local intermediaries bought the 2002/03 gold bean harvest
at about US$40 per 100-lb sack; this bean sells on the New
York Stock Exchange at about US$66 per 100-lb sack.
Contact:
Mark Lundy, Project
Activity Coordinator for Central America and the Caribbean,
RAD, CIAT.
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Volume
II of the book Cassava Sour Starch in Colombia, presented
here in its latest electronic version, describes a model production
plant, with a maximum processing capacity of 625 kg of fresh
roots per hour. The manual, with information in Spanish, English,
and French, covers the main aspects of a processing plant,
such as civil engineering, flow charts, distribution in plant,
optimization of equipment, motor power, and characteristics
of materials.
“Barriers That
Permit Progress” is the name of an article published
in the last issue (July 2002) of the institutional bulletin
Growing Affinities, which refers to thesis research project
carried out by the Project’s agroindustrial engineer
Juliana Andrea Rizo. 
The first
conference of the Inter-American 2Series of Scientific Conferences
"Henry A. Wallace" was held on 