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Agriculture provides paths out of urban
poverty
CIP
and partner organizations are spearheading efforts to
improve the livelihoods of farmers in Lima’s shantytowns
by helping them identify and seek solutions to the
numerous problems they face in producing and marketing
their vegetable and livestock products.
Food
insecurity plagues large numbers of impoverished
households in and around Lima, where agriculture continues
to be an important source of food and income.
With
this in mind, Urban
Harvest, a CIP-coordinated program, launched a new
research project in shantytowns east of Lima to evaluate
and improve urban agriculture’s contribution to poverty
alleviation. This multi-institutional and
interdisciplinary project—funded by the Government of
Spain—addresses, among other things, animal and crop
production issues, marketing constraints, and
environmental concerns.
Some
of the institutions involved in the initiative include
Peru’s National Agricultural Research Institute (INIA)
and Institute for Research in Nutrition (INN), as well as
local nongovernmental organizations such as Tecnides and
IPDA (Instituto Promoción y Desarrollo Agrario).
Urban
Harvest and small-scale farmers from the project area
began by convening a workshop at CIP headquarters to
identify key aspects of urban agriculture that could be
improved through joint efforts. At this meeting, held in
mid-2003, the participants agreed on strategies to help
realize the necessary improvements, such as building
better alliances and greater social capital among farmers,
and improving understanding among stakeholders through
roundtable dialogues.
The
workshop—which also involved CIP agricultural
economists, plant breeders, pathologists, agronomists,
geographic information system (GIS) specialists, and
social anthropologists—provided insights into the
relevant crop and livestock production systems, as well as
the policy issues affecting local producers. Workshop
discussions demonstrated that one of the main constraints
confronting urban agriculture was the absence of local
policymaking and planning procedures.
“Many
city planners do not recognize agriculture as being a
viable urban activity. Instead, they consider it a public
nuisance,” explains Gordon Prain, leader of the Urban
Harvest program.
An
important element of the project, therefore, is providing
information to local municipal agencies and planning
bodies on the positive benefits that urban agriculture can
generate for human health, the city environment, and
recycling of urban waste products.
The
project also seeks to build farmers’ capacity to use and
adapt improved pest management strategies and to take
advantage of market opportunities. It emphasizes the use
of social and discovery-based learning, including farmer
field school methodologies, group learning, and hands-on
activities. “In this learning-by-doing process of
education,” explains Prain, “researchers act as
catalysts in the social learning process among farmers.
Emphasis is placed on improving and enhancing farmers’
already existing knowledge through practical experiments
carried out in their own fields.”
Additionally,
research partners and local municipal authorities are
using a stakeholder and policy dialogue model to directly
contribute to long-term urban development. Part of the
implementation of this model involves conducting analyses
that will help to better understand the local agricultural
groups and associations, the municipal level departments
and officials, and how these groups interrelate.
As
part of the official project launch, a meeting of Lima
mayors was convened in November 2003. During the meeting,
senior policy makers from Havana, Cuba and Cuenca,
Ecuador, described how their cities had successfully
implemented integrated urban agriculture programs.
Following the meeting—which was also attended by local
government authorities, nongovernmental organizations and
Urban Harvest staff and research associates—the local
mayors signed a declaration supporting the integration of
urban agriculture within their municipal development
plans.
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