Country: Colombia

Organization: PBA Foundation: Foundation for the participatory and sustainable development of small farmers

3) Strategy Summary:
PBA has several characteristics that turn it into a highly innovating program: a) The structure is highly participative, representative, fast and flexible, b) The methodologies and research applied are participative and innovative, c) The empowerment of the communities through develop their capacities and to enhance their knowledge and expertise so that they can become leaders of their own social and economic development processes, d) The implementation of participative projects that would contribute to improve the competitiveness and sustainability of their agricultural production, e) The investment in strategic research projects for the permanent generation of new technologies and products that provide continuity to the processes started

4) How the Strategy Works:
Step 1: Diffusion strategy: the PBA team work, get in touch with the small farmers groups prioritized and explain to them the program objectives and the participative research methodology. The productive systems of these communities have to have technological and environmental constraints and be developed mainly in marginal areas.

Step 2: Creating and/or strengthening local participatory research groups in each community: these comprise groups of small farmers who are interested in participating in the programme, and will contribute with work capital and farm area towards the execution of technology adjustment and production processes, that is, local scaling-up and/or use of the end products (high quality seeds and bio- inputs). The number and location of the local participatory research groups will be determined according to local socioeconomic characteristics.

Step 3: Participative socioeconomic characterization: together with the communities, the researchers from the institutions outline the socioeconomic characterization of the areas where are located the communities prioritized, including the construction of economic, social and biophysical indicators. To obtain feedback and approval from the communities about the information generated, workshops with small farmers and other members of the rural communities are carried out.

Step 4: Selecting technologies to use in each community. Each community together with the researchers from the institutions, will analyze, select, and, if need be, complement the technologies and/or processes (protocols, infrastructure design, methodologies) for application to the small grower?s communities which the programme will work.

Step 5: Participative formulation of the productive project: with the collected information on the previous phases, the following step is to formulate, through workshops and in participatory way, together the small producers and researchers from the institutions, the project to aim to solve constrains to have hindered the small farmers from having a competitive production. The project has to comprise at least the strategies to develop the following aspects: a) Technological and productive strategies b) Technological and entrepreneurial pilot centres creation, c) Local Participative Groups organization, d) Technological training plan, e) Productive plan on prioritized areas and f) Entrepreneurial as well as personal growth (building values, self confidence and leadership) training plan.

Step 6: Characterization, enhancement, and dissemination of participatory methodologies for research, empowerment, monitoring, and evaluation with small farmers as used by the participating entities. The institutions involved in the project will apply the methodologies, enhanced through exchange, in their work with small-farmer groups participating in the project. These methodologies and strategies will be adjusted in the course of the project, according to experience gained in the project and/or other sharing of experiences. Special emphasis will be focused on participatory research methodologies leading to the empowerment of the small grower communities and their entrepreneurial organization in Technologically Based Enterprises ?of their own- for technology scale-up (high quality seeds and bio-inputs).

Step 7: Establishing of partnerships, collaborative alliances or searching of different financing sources: the last step is the project implementation; to develop this stage the small producers receive form PBA Foundation part of the work capital as a counterpart, other one has to be a counterpart form the small producers and the complement is searching separately or jointly, through establishing contact with institutions or private enterprises who are interested on the project goals.

5) Key Strategy Elements:

i. Mobilizing Citizen Support:
One of the fundamental decisions for the PBA operation is based on a strong participation of the small farmers. Therefore, the PBA work has been focused in the organization of the Local Participative Groups (LPG) of the small farmers, who would be responsible for carrying out the participative research and training activities in each location, as well as research, development and participative promotion of cleaner and more sustainable production technologies, the assessment of new varieties adapted to the local productive conditions, and the production and use of bio-inputs. These LPG cover 153 municipalities, 300 communities and 2.071 farmers, many of them are women. Several LPG are legally organized in Cooperatives or Farmers Associations

ii. Generating Financial and Nonfinancial Resources:
The work carried out by PBA and its partnership schemes has led to develop a series of resources: for the small farmers through the increase in productivity reflected an increase in income of US$917 per family, or a net yearly increase of US$243.000. On the other hand, the PBA resources to develop the projects have been increasing by the sign of collaborative agreements with other national and international institutions thanks to the innovative methodology and the participative achievements on previous years in technological aspects, on developing of regional capacities and organizational, social and empowerment of the rural communities

iii. Establishing Relationships with Strategic Partnerships:
From the very beginning, the PBA Foundation has been concerned about the building of a national and international network, with whom it can work together in objectives and specific subjects. This network has made it possible to have access to human and economic resources (most of the resources come from donations, in-kind donations, etc.), know-how, technologies, methodologies and infrastructure that have been of fundamental importance for the development of its activities. At national level the PBA Foundation has partnerships with regional universities and national research institutions. At international level, PBA Foundation develops ?or has developed? joint activities or cooperation work with many research institutions.

6) Increasing Self-sufficiency and Social Impact:
Thanks to the participative methodology applied to develop the programme, the PBA has been able to develop projects aimed to solve the real and most felt problems among the communities involved and meet their real interests and needs. The adoption of research results becomes easier given that the participation of the small farmers and their families into the activities of technology generation and adaptation contributes to adjust it to their social, economic and agroecological conditions.

As a result of the participative research processes, new technological offers are available to improve the competitiveness and sustainability of the production systems considered of high priority by the small farmers. Simultaneously, the processes developed encourage the design of entrepreneurial schemes with small producers and their families, with the main objective of the local scaling-up of technological products and the generation of new incomes within the rural communities.

8) Organization Mission and Vision:
Mission: to contribute to the improvement of the living standard and to overcome the poverty conditions of the small farmers based on the development and application of sustainable technologies.

Vision: To become the support of the small farmers in their innovation and building of capacities processes.

Looking Forward to the Next Three Years:
The PBA main objectives over the next years is to consolidate the processes started with the small farmers and enhanced to cover new fields and concerns of small farmers and to cover other regions of the country to replicate models, methodologies and technologies that have been developed. On the other hand, PBA will develop collaborative projects with research institutions of the Andean countries through the development of participative innovation programmes with small farmers in the Andean Regi

Contact Information:
Santiago  Perry
PBA Foundation: Foundation for the participatory and sustainable development of small farmers
Calle 93B No. 13-92 of.403 / Bogotý
Colombia
Tel: 57-1-6227965/54/76
Fax: 57-1-6227976
Email: sperry@andinet.com