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Objectives
 The overall objective of the project was to improve the incomes and living standards
of the peasant population in the area by increasing their food production
and creating opportunities for them to engage in profitable agricultural
activities on their smallholdings.
More specifically, it was hoped to: increase agricultural
production through the provision of supervised credit and extension; strengthen
production support services; arrest soil degradation; increase the use
of water for irrigation and other agricultural purposes; improve the marketing
system for agricultural products; provide physical and social infrastructure;
improve the nutritional levels of peasant families by increasing food
availability; encourage the production of handicrafts; develop the role
of women in the peasant economy; and increase family incomes.
Activities In
order to achieve the project’s objectives, nine components were included:
- supervised
credit;
- support
services;
- micro-irrigation;
- land
rehabilitation;
- forestation
and soil conservation;
- physical
and social infrastructure;
- fish
culture;
- traditional
handicrafts development; and
- TA.
OutcomeProject execution was seriously affected by drastic economic
and political changes in the country, including the hyperinflation and
drastic currency devaluation of 1983-85, enforcement of strong monetary
and fiscal restrictions between 1986 and 1988, and the restructuring of
public institutions. Bureaucratic bottlenecks caused problems in transfers
of project funds and in purchases of supplies and equipment. Moreover,
a severe public spending adjustment programme prevented local counterparts
from meeting their financial obligations to the project.
In general, the project succeeded in improving the beneficiaries’
quality of life, mainly thanks to increased availability of potable water,
agricultural land and micro-irrigation. However, its impact varied and
fell below target. According to the mid-term review (MTR), project management
changed four times in less than three years.
Access
to inputs and infrastructure
| Planned |
|
Achieved |
| Provide six thousand
peasant families with supervised credit for agricultural and livestock
production, as the principal component of the project.
Construct or rehabilitate 140 km of all-weather feeder
roads.
Provide drinking water, including by the installment
of systems to distribute water directly to peasant households and
by the digging of wells.
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The supervised credit
(35% of project costs) was ineffective. The project was unable to
create a sustainable credit system adequate to the needs of the
peasants. By August 1993, the value of outstanding loans was $4.7
million (91% of the loans), of which 62% was due and had not been
repaid. This outcome was caused by the difficult institutional and
economic context, including the closure of the agricultural bank.
The project wrongly estimated the demand for credit in the poorer
areas, and had problems with implementation (high transaction costs)
and supervision (inability to detect problems quickly).
No information on the construction of feeder roads
is currently available.
The availability of potable water benefited 1310
families in 24 communities.
|
Organizations
and people
| Planned |
|
Achieved |
| Make full use of available
agricultural extension services; provide technical support and
coordination to ensure that supervised credit for agricultural
and livestock production had the greatest possible impact.
Strengthen institutions providing support services
for agricultural and livestock production activities, as well
as cooperatives involved in marketing agricultural products. |
|
No information is available
on the impact of the extension services.
Local institutions were strengthened by the provision
of training. Some individuals who had received training went on
to work on other development projects. |
Risk
management
| One of the
main constraints faced by poor farmers in the area is that the
main marketing channels are controlled by a number of intermediaries,
who keep the price of farming products low and prevent the smallholders
from effectively increasing their incomes. The absence of government
policies in support of the smallholder farmers has contributed
to keeping them at the mercy of the intermediaries. |
| Planned |
|
Achieved
|
| Improve marketing by
granting short- and long-term credit to cooperatives to finance
the construction of storage, product grading and packaging facilities;
enable them to purchase peasant production for marketing; and
provide international TA.
Create new jobs opportunities and increase incomes
by encouraging alternative income-generating activities, especially
for women, including the construction of 1 000 fish ponds
(to produce 120 tons of fish per year) and the promotion of traditional
handicrafts. |
|
The marketing component
suffered severe setbacks. Its design was too ambitious and took
no account of the traditions and interests of peasant communities
and the complexity of the marketing process.
Women benefited from the traditional handicrafts
production component. Five workshops, including 300 women from
12 different communities, produced 5 000 articles. The fish
culture component was largely unsuccessful. |
Range
management
| Bolivia
faces serious problems in terms of soil conservation and the
management of natural resources. Over the last 30 years, degradation
of the natural vegetative cover has increased alarmingly, mainly
owing to the high pressure of agriculture and livestock activities,
which has led to falling harvests and losses in the smallholder
farming economy. The farmers are unaware of the damage they
are causing, and thus take no remedial action. |
| Planned |
|
Achieved
|
| Rehabilitate 800-1 000
ha of highly fertile soils, and strengthen institutions involved
in micro-irrigation. Facilitate access to land by distributing
800-1 000 ha of highly fertile lands to peasant farming
households, thereby increasing individual holdings by approximately
1 ha.
Control and prevent erosion through re-establishment
of protective vegetation. |
|
900 ha of land was
rehabilitated and distributed to 1 800 producers in 47
communities. Micro-irrigation techniques were introduced on
1 655 ha, benefiting 2 750 families.
Soil erosion was halted in a number of valleys
in the region. |
Livestock feed
Livestock
feed mainly consists of natural pastures during the rainy season
and agricultural by-products during the winter months. However,
such by-products do not completely satisfy sheep production
requirements. Natural pastures have a very low carrying capacity
and are seriously overgrazed. |
Planned |
|
Achieved |
Provide credit to
support the introduction and application of technology for improving
the nutrition of sheep with a view to increasing meat and wool
production. This included short-term credit to finance the cultivation
of oats to improve the sheep pastures. Undertake research on
forages, and improve sheep pastures by promoting oat/Vicia spp.
mixes. |
|
Although the use of
oat and Vicia spp. forage had a positive impact in other regions
of Bolivia with similar ecological conditions, poor results
were achieved in the project area. |
Herd improvement
| The sheep
population of the Chuquisaca region represents only 10% of the
national herd. Animal production systems are poorly managed,
resulting in overgrazing, a high inbreeding coefficient and
serious external and internal parasite infestations. The herds
generally number less than 30 animals. The typical sheep weighs
only about 20 kg. |
| Planned
|
|
Achieved
|
| Provide credit to
support the introduction and application of technology for improving
the reproductive potential of sheep, in order to increase meat
and wool production. This included long-term credit to finance
the purchase of 4 500 improved Corriedale sheep provided
by the Regional Development Corporation of Chuquisaca. |
|
The sheep production
component suffered a number of serious setbacks. Its design
was too ambitious, and did not take account of the traditions
and interests of peasant communities and complexity of the marketing
process. By July 1986, 56 improved sires had been purchased
and distributed, but no progress was made due to poor management
and the lack of proper feeding and animal health programmes.
Some 857 farmers were trained in improved sheep
management techniques, such as use of proper sheep-shearing
tools; in controlled reproduction methods to obtain lambs during
the most advantageous period of the year; and in the castration
of rams not suitable for reproduction. |
Animal
health
| According
to a survey of the animal health situation, infectious diseases
and parasite infestations have a major negative impact on local
livestock productivity. |
| Planned |
|
Achieved
|
| Implement the following
animal health programme:
- periodical vaccination against infectious diseases;
- prevention of gastro-intestinal disease in new-born animals;
- treatment for ‘sheep-liver fluke’ (distomatosis)
sheep provided by the Regional Development Corporation of
Chuquisaca.>;
- acaricide treatment by dipping.
- survey of parasite infestation in livestock;
- creation of a veterinary service to implement the animal
health programme; and
- provision of funds to finance a new laboratory and purchase
of medicines.
|
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Very few animal health
campaigns were completed. By July 1986, some 4 485 animals
in 33 communities had been treated for internal parasites. |
Lessons learned
-
The direct beneficiaries of such complex, geographically dispersed
projects, involving numerous institutions with differing interests
and structures, should also be the principal actors. The possibility
of the rural population participating in the ex post evaluation
mission should be explored.
- Rural credit should not be provided exclusively for agricultural
production purposes. Small-scale farmers should be able to invest
in other potentially profitable production activities, such as traditional
handicrafts.
- The credit system should be more ‘rural’ in nature so
as to promote the participation of communal organizations. This would
help reduce administrative costs and debt defaults.
- Credit should be provided to individuals, under community supervision,
rather than to groups. It was observed that whenever credit was provided
to groups, less responsibility was taken for its management.
- Priority should be given to the careful selection of credit recipients,
in collaboration with community authorities, rather than to over-expensive,
time-consuming annual supervisions.
- The design of the animal health programme was over-ambitious and
did not take account of the traditions and interests of peasant communities
or of the complexity of the marketing process.
- A ‘technological package’ (TP) is not automatically transferable,
even if positive results were obtained under similar ecological conditions.
Other important factors play a pivotal role in TP adoption: socio-economic
and cultural conditions, appropriate training support, availability
of inputs and technical follow-up.
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| Project information |
Total
project cost: USD 21.0 million, Livestock/rangeland cost (as percentage
of total): 5%
Beneficiaries: Approximately 6 000 small-farmer families were expected
to benefit directly from project components dealing with agricultural
and livestock production. The other project components were to benefit
almost the entire rural population (24 000 families) of the northern
Chuquisaca region
Project area: The project was located in the rural areas of the three
northern Provinces of Oropeza, Zudanez and Yamparaez in the Department
of Chuquisaca and in part of Chayanta Province in the contiguous Department
of Potosi.
Lack of protective vegetation speeds up erosion, which,
owing to the steep gradients and sandy-argillaceous soils, causes serious
losses of agricultural land. Erosion constitutes the main limiting factor
on the use of potentially agricultural land. |
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