Few situations in the world demonstrate more vividly than that of Colombia the
destructive, vicious circle in which armed conflict and rural poverty perpetuate one
another. The World Bank ranks Colombia "as one of the most violent countries in the
world, with 89.5 murders annually per 100,000 people." According to an Amnesty
International report on Colombia, "more than 30,000 people have been victims of
politically motivated killings in the last decade." Most of these deaths have
resulted from a three-way conflict between the army, leftist guerilla movements, and
right-wing paramilitary groups. Among the principal victims of the fighting are
small-farm families living in remote, marginal areas of the countryside. In January of
this year, for example, a total of about 200 rural people were massacred in the southern
department of Putumayo and in several areas of northern Colombia. These killings were part
of the paramilitaries' current strategy of selectively eliminating suspected guerilla
supporters among the civilian population.
The systematic murder of thousands of rural people each year has provoked hundreds of
thousands more to flee, individually and en masse, to the margins of Colombian cities.
Since 1985, nearly a million people—out of every 40 Colombians, or 2.5 percent of the
total population—have been displaced by violence, according to Colombia's
nongovernment Consultancy for Human Rights and Displacement (CODHES).
The absence of basic services that would make possible an acceptable standard of living
in rural areas leads some people to join guerilla and paramilitary groups (or at least
support them), while others take up narcotics production and processing for lack of
economic alternatives. The narcotics trade, believed to be a major source of income for
both guerillas and paramilitaries, provides a potent fuel for the conflict. Continued
violence, in turn, further impoverishes the countryside, driving people off the land and
into urban misery.
Researchers with the Cali, Colombia-based International Center for Tropical Agriculture
(CIAT) and its host country's national agricultural research institute—the Colombian
Corporation for Agricultural Research (CORPOICA)—have developed a new farmer
participatory approach that better enables rural people in marginal areas to provide food
and income for their families. Centering on CIALs or "committees for local
agricultural research," the method provides a way for farmers to conduct their own
research, ensuring that the technology developed is appropriate under their circumstances.
Nearly 250 CIALs have been established in more than a dozen countries of Latin America.
To cite one of many examples, a CIAL established 8 years ago at El Diviso, an isolated
community of 83 farm families in the south of Cauca department, has rescued the village
from serious food deficits. Until the early 1990s, most of these families went hungry in
the months just before harvest, mainly because of the low yields and long maturity time of
the maize varieties they were growing. After testing various alternatives, the CIAL
selected a higher yielding, early maturing variety developed by CORPOICA with experimental
germplasm supplied by the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) in
Mexico. To satisfy growing demand for the new variety, the CIAL went into small-scale
commercial production of maize seed. Their customers included neighboring farmers and
local agricultural extension services. In 4 years the group has sold 7 tons of seed with
an estimated value of US$7,000. CIAT researchers estimate that the value of the additional
maize production derived from this seed is $70,000 to $80,000 annually.
With profits from seed sales, the CIAL at El Diviso purchased a small mechanized mill,
which spares villagers much hand labor or a trip to the nearest town. Milled maize has a
higher retail value than the unprocessed crop, helping to raise farmers' incomes from
their grain surpluses. The success of the CIAL at El Diviso has yielded other, unexpected
benefits as well. In 1996 the group obtained 40 hectares of additional land from
Colombia's land reform institute and now uses it for extra seed production. In addition,
the CIAL has set up a rotating fund, to which it contributes $0.20 for every kilogram of
maize seed sold. Local farmers can borrow from the fund at interest rates below those
commercially available. So far, loans have been granted to farmers venturing into
tomatoes, beans, pigs, and chickens.
"To the extent that the CIALs strengthen community organization and encourage
economic development, they should make rural people less vulnerable to the pressures and
enticements of groups that are trying to solve social problems outside the law," says
Ann Braun, who leads research on farmer participatory methods at CIAT.
Experience in Cauca department, where 56 CIALs now operate, demonstrates that they
stimulate local economic growth by better enabling farmers to increase their earnings
through more efficient agricultural production and processing. Often, the CIALs benefit
groups that have previously been excluded from development, particularly women and
indigenous people.
"Participatory methods like the CIALs represent nothing less than a revolution in
agricultural research and the dissemination of its results," says Jacqueline Ashby,
director of research on natural resource management at CIAT. "By offering small
farmers an active, meaningful role in technology development, these methods provide a
'democratic' alternative to the traditional, top-down approach, in which scientists alone
generate new technology, extension services carry it to the countryside, and farmers
passively adopt it."
Each CIAL consists of four or more farmers, selected by the community because of their
known interest in experimenting with new technology, explains Braun. With assistance from
an extension officer, the committee diagnoses research needs through community
brainstorming sessions and then sets a research agenda, carries out experiments, and
reports the results to the community. Each CIAL serves a community consisting of about 350
people, on average. After several years of experimenting with this approach in the
departments of Boyoacá and Cundinamarca in Colombia, where 25 CIALs are now functioning,
CORPOICA is developing a project to extend the approach more widely across the nation.
"We believe participatory methods will better enable farmers to develop
appropriate technology with their own resources and will create new sources of
employment," says Manuel Arévalo, a researcher in CORPOICA's technology transfer
program. "And since the conflict is rooted in a lack of opportunities for rural
people, this should help reduce the violence in Colombia. We plan to apply the CIAL method
in marginal areas of the country, including mountainous areas where small farmers are
potential victims of violence."
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