Second Encounter of Small Farm Communities in the Dry Forest of the Piura Region
“Small farm communities as stakeholders in regional development”

Heifer Peru focuses on just and sustainable development so that people can improve their quality of life individually and collectively. This implies change and social transformation to enable them to develop their capabilities and to create economic, social and political opportunities for all men and women.(1 ) Food sovereignty contributes to this.

Agroecology Rural communities Policy advocacy Regional development Youth (urban and rural) Urban agriculture Gender equality, and intercultural relations

Agroecology

Within the framework of food sovereignty, Heifer Peru believes it is crucial to support the development and replication of an agroecological approach that offers both a technological and a political foundation for an alternative to conventional agriculture.(2)
Agroecology integrates various components, including crops, animal husbandry and human beings. It advocates healthful production, favoring the use of local resources and emphasizing the value of traditional local knowledge and wisdom, as well as promoting rural small-farm self-reliance. Agroecology should be incorporated into rural development strategies to: a. Improve small farmers’ quality of life by allowing them to develop ecologically sustainable subsistence strategies; ;   b.  Increasing the productivity of smallholders’ land so they can compete on the marketplace, by promoting low-input technologies and decreasing production costs; and    c. Promoting employment and income generation with appropriate technologies for processing foods in order to add value to the products grown on farms(3).

Most small farmers raise livestock as a key part of their production and income, but are often at a disadvantage because of low productivity or because they are left to fend for themselves in the market, regardless of sustainability and diversity of production. In reconstructing sustainable food systems, it is important to reexamine the importance of livestock production. Agroecology plays a major role in this area.

Small farm communities  

Four years after Peru’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission issued its report(4), we must ask, Why does Heifer Peru focus on rural communities? Because their existence and persistence enable people to reproduce their lifestyles and make their living in the Peruvian Andes; because most of the poor rural population is concentrated there; and because according to the report, they were the most severely affected by the political violence. One key factor in working with rural communities is that small farmers and other rural peoples defend food sovereignty in their daily lives. A global advocacy effort must therefore influence public policies and systems to help them develop.

Regional development and decentralization

We work for decentralized national development by proactively influencing changes in systems and practices at the local, regional and national levels. According to our analysis, economic, cultural and political hegemonic centralization is harmful to provinces and small farmers. Centralization is reflected in the asymmetrical relationship between Lima, the national capital, and other regions. Therefore, it is necessary to support, strive for and expand regional development not only in economic, cultural and social terms but also politically, which involves decentralizing decisions about people’s own development. At local and regional levels, and upwards, where rural organizations must play a leading role and must most strongly receive support for capacity-building, policy and system change to defend food sovereignty.

Policy advocacy

Everyday life in Peruvian society is marked by power relationships among hegemonic and subordinate groups. Indigenous peoples and rural communities are subject to discrimination and expropriation of their rights. This could be changed through collective efforts to find new ways of building genuine democracy that take into account the interests of rural people and small farmers.

Policy advocacy is not as an end in itself, but a strategy for influencing processes and achieving social, economic, and political change to systematically build food sovereignty. Heifer Peru acts as a strategic partner for rural organizations and movements of small urban and rural producers who engage in policy advocacy to bring about change in practices, systems and policies at the local, regional and national levels, in partnership with civil society and the government.

Urban agriculture

We will continue to work in peripheral urban and urban zones, incorporating women and youth, and we will foster alliances with organizations working on these issues with an eye to strengthening food sovereignty for both farmers and consumers. Because a large percentage of poverty appears in urban areas, where the economic crisis has had a disproportionate impact on the urban poor, especially women, who must resort to informal and high-risk activities to survive, urban food production and urban agriculture are a survival strategy for the poorest segment of urban population. To respond to a more complex reality in urban areas, we have decided to support development in peripheral urban and urban poverty belts, where a large number of families live in poverty (migrants or their children, many of whom were forced to leave their rural homes because of the political violence).

Urban and rural youth

Community and rural organization building involves working for youth development. This is the only way to ensure a generational handover and shared leadership, expanding critical education for change. Recent experience in various projects supported by Heifer Peru shows that we have the skill and potential to significantly integrate youth into our efforts. We will work with young people, who offer the chance to change leadership and influence local and regional political dynamics. This will ensure sustainability and new leadership for rural and other grassroots organizations.

Gender Equality

This is a cross-cutting issue throughout Heifer Peru’s work and human relationships. It is a non-negotiable component of our institutional and inter-institutional relations. Gender equality(5) is understood as a strategy for achieve equal conditions, opportunities and rights to develop the capabilities of both men and women for access to and control of resources, building harmonious relationships between them.

We promote gender equality at all levels, making this an institutional policy that entails mainstreaming gender equality; empowering women;(6) Including men (addressing issues of masculinity); partnering with others in efforts to move toward equality; and addressing development and gender equality at the personal, family and community levels, with self-esteem, respect for differences, leadership capability and development of organizations.

Intercultural relations

This is a cross-cutting theme Heifer Peru’s work, because an intercultural approach is crucial for building a democratic society and fair relationships; recognizing cultural diversity; and respecting and being enriched by differences in places like the Andean world, which has always been characterized by great cultural diversity. Although culture is internalized by individuals, it remains eminently social, constantly transmitted through social interaction, especially education, training(7) and oral culture. In a diverse, heterogeneous country such as Peru, cultural diversity (including mixed Spanish and native, Andean, Quechua or Aymara, coastal, black, northern, native Amazonian and Lima city dwellers) and intercultural relations are a part of everyday life, whether people actively seek them out or not. Because cultural elements rooted in traditions other that one’s own are always influential, intercultural understanding becomes a guiding principle for social change.

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