This farmer weeds his plot after the maize has been harvested in El Eden Arenales, Lempira Department. In the background the farmer has planted a fence of pineapple and maize plants to prevent soil erosion caused by rain water running down slope.

IFAD photo by Franco Mattioli

Project name
Agricultural Development Programme for the Western Region

Location
Honduras, western departments of Copán, Lempira and Ocotepeque (bordering Guatemala and El Salvador)

Responsible organization
International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD)
Cofinanced by the Central American Bank of Economic Integration (BCIE), OPEC Fund, and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).

Description

Honduras is one of the poorest countries in the Americas. Almost 75 percent of its rural population live in poverty, and nine out of ten rural households headed by women are affected by poverty. In 1993, IFAD implemented the ''Agricultural Development Programme for the Western Region'' (due to be completed in June 2000) in an area inhabited by 60,000 families who survive by cultivating small plots of basic grains and by working as day labourers, primarily cultivating coffee. Ninety percent of the area itself is suited to forestry, and only ten percent to agriculture. Nevertheless, agriculture and livestock activities have taken precedence, and substantial tracts of land have been deforested to provide agricultural or grazing land, often through the practice of ''slash and burn.'' This process has accelerated the destruction of forest resources, with grave implications for the region’s ecosystem.

The programme has assisted farmers, both women and men to organize into groups for the purpose of identifying their needs and finding practical ways to address them. By introducing new technologies and diversified activities, the programme has helped in increasing farmers’ productivity and incomes. This highly participatory approach has led to a number of project activities:

• Roads have been rehabilitated and improved to allow farm families to bring their fruit and vegetable production to the markets.

• Credit has been provided to families so that they are able to finance farm investments (small irrigation and land improvement schemes, for example) and purchase tree crops, livestock and farm equipment and tools. The establishment of micro-credit has strengthened the local providers financial services as well as the relationship between them and the local population.

• An information campaign has been set up to ensure regular communication between the programme implementers, beneficiaries and providers of technical services. Reports on productive activities and family economy have been distributed through radio programmes, pamphlets and other written and graphic materials. The materials produced included information on training of the rural population and technology transfer activities.

Results achieved

• The 7,133 families involved in the project are organised into 326 groups of producers dedicated to agro-forestry activities (237), micro-enterprise (29) and administration of funds (63). Rural services have been decentralized through private enterprises (EDRs) that provide technical assistance to the beneficiaries.

• Almost half of the producers groups (150) have created their own Community Funds. These funds have helped to finance their projects as well as to eliminate borrowing from usurers. In addition, they have stimulated community savings, which are immediately available to support the rural investment and production processes.

• The 237 agro-forestry producers have formed a committee responsible for purchasing agricultural supplies for all producers. In this way, the bulk requests create more favourable prices and purchasing conditions.

• The 29 micro-enterprise groups have created the Càmara de Microempresarios de la Regiòn de Occidente, whose aim is to promote the creation of crafts shops and the participation in fairs and exposition at the local, regional and national levels.

• In addition, 46 Credit Committees have been created with representatives from municipalities, producer associations, EDRs and banks. These Committees have made it possible for credit requests to be processed quickly. Moreover, delinquency rates have been very low (two percent), demonstrating that small producers can be good clients if they are supported by adequate training and consulting.

Lessons learned

• The innovative approach of the project - the decentralisation of rural services through private enterprises – is also the project’s main strength. It has overcome the traditional problems of inefficiency when these services were provided through State Agencies. It is important that the staff of these private enterprises receive ongoing training in order to assure consistent high value-added services.

• The empowerment of producers must be based on the reality that the accumulation of technical know-how in agriculture is a gradual process. In this regard, the ''best'' technical solutions must be guided by the following parameters:

- they are not necessarily the most advanced solutions, but those that better fit the economic situations and learning capacities of the producers;

- they are not solutions that are merely transplanted from another context – they need to be fine-tuned to the conditions of the local environment; and

- they are not solutions that can be adopted with great success by a minority, but those that can increase the productivity of the majority.

• A flexible information network has been indispensable in consolidating and disseminating the successes and obstacles in project activities, as well as in facilitating their evaluation and formulating next steps. The inclusion of a local radio station specializing in social promotion has been instrumental in fostering capacity-building and technology transfer activities.

• A close monitoring of the spontaneous Community Funds is necessary in order to assure that they are compatible with development and capacity-building objectives and do not instead create ''poverty recycling'' effects.

IFAD Operations in Honduras | IFAD Through Photography - Honduras