Implementing Agency:
Department For International Development (PAND)

Managing Institute:
CARE International UK

Contractor:
CARE - Peru

Project Code: 122-680-010	Start Date: 01/04/1991	End Date: 31/03/1994
Commitment: £290,006	Status: Completed	Type of Funding: Bilateral - NGO Block Grant

Project Background:
CARE-PERU proposes to increase the food security of 5,000 small farmers and their families in 100 Andean communities in the Jose Carlos Mariategui and Inca regions of Peru. The project will expand CARE's work in the southern Andean region covering an area that has been largely left outside the development process. The geographic focus includes the highlands (over 4000 metres above sea level) in the southern part of the department of Cuzco, the south western part of the department of Puno and the northern parts of the departments of Tacna and Moquegua. Agriculture is the predominant activity in the Andean region. There are 1.2 million families living in the rural areas and 75 percent of these are small farmers with an average of 0.3 hectares per family. Despite the vastness of the region, only 2.3 million hectares are cultivated land. The ration of cultivated land to the number of inhabitants is 0.138 hectares/person one of the lowest in the world. Agriculture is primarily for subsistence with very small income generating surplus. The vast majority of farmers use traditional technologies and unimproved farm practices. Productivity is low, and in addition, adverse climatic conditions such as frosts and droughts make small farmers particularly vulnerable to food shortages. Adverse climatic factors are particularly insidious in the region of the Altiplano and its adjoining highlands where bad years are frequent and their negative impact on seedstocks and livestock lasts three to four years. This total dependence on subsistence agriculture places the Andean farmer at the bottom of the poverty scale in Peru. The poorest 40 percent of the population, most of whom live in the high Andes, represent only 7 percent of the GNP, or a total of US $168 per capita per year. Some of the health statistics are equally alarming: 57 percent of all the children under five living in the rural areas suffer from severe chronic malnutrition. According to Ministry of Health figures, 126 out of every 1000 Peruvian children die during childhood. This figure more than doubles for the Andean region where the rate is 257 out of 1000 children who die. The southern Andean Region, which is the focus of this project, has been the most neglected in Peru with the majority of its population 4000 metres above sea level living in absolute poverty. The purpose of this project is to increase the level of food security in a sustainable manner among small farmers by increasing productivity, and by buffering the negative impact of adverse climatic conditions. The major strategies include the construction and rehabilitation of productive infrastructures, capitalisation through the provision of agricultural inputs, improvement of farm technology through training and technical assistance, strengthening of organisational structures to ensure an effective management of resources, and diversification of sustainable activities in order to reduce production risks. The activities to be implemented are based on CARE's experience in agriculture in Peru over the last ten years, and will include rehabilitation of terraces, construction of minor irrigation systems, introdution and development of improved sheep and alpaca raising modules, improved crop production, construction of diffused-light warehouses for potato seed storage, improved crop production, introduction of greenhouses for horticultural crops, training of small farmers in agricultural technologies, and the establishment of revolving fund mechanisms. Agroforestry interventions will not be conducted as part of this project, but will be included in the work with the communities through AFCA, CARE's agroforestry project which will be operating in the same locations as part of an integrated approach to rural development. CARE's approach will be to work with organised communal groups to ensure the sustainability of all economic/agricultural activities.

Project Objectives:
The final goal of the project is to improve the food security of 5,000 small farmers and their families in a sustainable manner in 100 communities in the Jose Carlos Mariategui and Inca regions by the end of the project. The immediate goal is 5,000 small farmers significantly increase their crop yields and livestock production by the end of the project.

Intended Outputs:
Crop yields on the average are at least 25 percent higher in participant communities than in communities without project interventions, and 40 percent higher during years of adverse climatic conditions. Participant communities have at least 25 percent more food reserves than communities without project interventions during periods of food shortage. Average potato yield per hectare is increased by 40 percent. Average cereals (barley, quinua and canihua) yield per hectare is increased by 30 percent. Average weight of sheep is increased by 50 percent. Lamb and alpaca wool production is increased by 50 percent.