Summary

The Covid-19 pandemic has hit small farmers, especially women, hard in Latin America. RIMISP (Latin American Center for Rural Development) has conducted participatory research to mitigate the impact of Covid-19 for small farmers in the department of Huila, Colombia. The team has worked closely with the Secretary of Agriculture and Mining of the Governor’s Office of Huila to create a Rural Dialogue Group to promote discussion of project findings with local stakeholders. These discussions are now helping to shape the local government agenda around these issues. The research team is also strengthening the capacity of small producer organizations to provide them with better access to public programs.

“The rural dialogue groups are a fundamental space for thinking about the department’s rural development model, which cannot be formulated only from Bogota.”

Secretary of Agriculture of the Department of Huila

The challenge

The Covid-19 pandemic has highlighted the vulnerability of agrifood systems to shocks and stresses which, in turn, has led to increased food insecurity and malnutrition globally. Smallholder farmers and women producers have been particularly affected by the challenges facing all agrifood systems. The project survey project survey finds that female-headed households are most affected by food insecurity. The burden of domestic and productive work has increased for women producers more than for men producers due to the care responsibilities of the former during the pandemic.

In Huila, Colombia, 53% of the agricultural production units belong to farming families and other smallholders in the community, and 43% of the population 43% of the population has been affected by food insecurity since the beginning of the pandemic. The capacity needs of smallholder farmers in the department of Huila include access to public programs and projects, marketing channels and other opportunities for greater productivity.

The research

RIMISP leads the project Siembra Desarrollo: Smallholder Agriculture and Food Resilient to Covid-19 in Colombia and other Latin American countries. In Huila, the team conducted participatory research on the socio-economic impact of the pandemic on the agrifood system. The researchers conducted focus groups with producers engaged in family farming, interviews with women producers and other relevant stakeholders, and a survey on food and nutrition security. The goal is to gain a better understanding of how to promote more sustainable, inclusive and gender-sensitive agrifood systems that are more resilient to shocks, such as the covid-19 pandemic.

The research findings include the need to strengthen the capacity of the existing network of small producer organizations in Huila. This would imply an expansion of the services it provides to its members, beyond political demands, to include support around production and marketing. This is intended to help producers increase their production and income, and gain better access to relevant programs and policies.

The impact

RIMISP created a Rural Dialogue Group in Huila for key stakeholders to discuss the project’s research findings and make evidence-based decisions to improve local policies to support smallholder farmers. The findings were summarized in a policy briefing note for the Secretary of Agriculture and other stakeholders represented in the group. Currently, the Rural Dialogue Group is discussing each of the recommendations in greater depth. The objective is to feed into the rural development model currently being developed by the Governor’s Office of Huila, in addition to the next development plan.

Based on the research findings and the discussions of the Rural Dialogue Group, RIMISP decided to strengthen 15 producer organizations in the north of the department through a diagnostic and capacity building plan. The RIMISP team worked with the organizations to review the departmental government programs to which they have access. They then included activities to help the organizations meet the program requirements of the plans.

As one of the planned activities, RIMISP is currently providing support to organizations to enable them to apply for and comply with the requirements of the local public procurement program. The policy, which has been difficult to implement, requires that 70% of food purchases by public entities be made from smallholder farmers or their organizations. Thanks to this activity and local media action, this issue is now part of the department’s agenda. The team plans to share these findings at the national level when public procurement policy is discussed at the National Technical Committee for local public procurement.

RIMISP has also conducted a diagnosis of women’s participation in these organizations in order to formulate recommendations for further support. Therefore, capacity building plans also include activities aimed at closing the gender gap at decision-making levels. The capacity building process has generated methodological and conceptual learning. The RIMISP team has shared and made the methodology available to others who could adapt and replicate it, including Plataforma Sur, the institution that works most closely with organizations in Huila.

The team’s close collaboration with the Secretary of Agriculture and Mining of the Governor’s Office of Huila, the main decision-maker regarding agricultural policy in the department, was essential to convene the Rural Dialogue Group and engage other high-level stakeholders. These included other actors from the departmental and municipal government; directors leading the main programs targeting small farmers; leaders from academia; representatives of SENA, the national training service that trains farmers; and agricultural and development organizations working in Huila.

The project has highlighted the importance of dialogue spaces for key stakeholders to come together and develop evidence-based collective strategies to address specific issues such as family farming. It has also led to more effective local planning processes and collective strategies in Huila around this issue. Thanks to the organizational strengthening process, farmers’ organizations are now better able to access public programs and credit and even establish a farmers’ market.

Currently, this project generates evidence and promotes changes for agrifood systems after the pandemic. Its purpose is to contribute to mitigating the impact of the pandemic on food security and consumption for the most vulnerable, especially women.

About this report

This Stories of Change document was written by Daniel Niño Eslava of RIMISP (Latin American Center for Rural Development) and Karine Gatellier of the CORE knowledge translation team at the Institute of Development Studies (IDS).

It was developed under the Covid-19 Responses for Equity (CORE) Knowledge Translation Program, which supports the translation of knowledge emerging from the CORE initiative. Supported by the International Development Research Centre, CORE integrates 21 projects to understand the socioeconomic impact of the pandemic, refine current responses, and generate better policy options for recovery.

The views expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of IDRC, its Board of Directors or IDS.

It is distributed in accordance with the terms of the Attribution 4.0 International Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY) of Creative Commons, which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided that credit is given to the original source and authors, and that all modifications or adaptations made are noted.