Step Back to the Future

Rick Exner

I left in the wintertime and came back from Perú to Iowa spring.  One end of my film is terraces and the other is... maybe more terraces.  From producers unhappy about raising cheap corn to small farmers competing with the same cheap corn. From farmers pursuing niche markets to farmers pursuing niche markets.

In some ways our Perú experience was like being in Iowa in the mid-1980s, when farmers were just realizing some of the things that they could do together through PFI.  Ron Brunk and I participated in a sort of “rolling workshop,” in which farmers from three communities got on a bus and spent a week visiting each other's fields, corrals, and shops (see photos).  Two communities are on the desert Pacific coast of Perú, and one lies in the mountains.  Many of the farmers from the highlands had never even been to the coast, and vice versa.

They quickly discovered that while they didn’t raise the same crops they face similar challenges.  They increasingly consider marketing to be just as important as production.  Many are becoming certified as IPM producers and even as organic, and they are looking for corresponding markets.  In the U.S., many specialty markets owe their existence to an economic middle class; in Perú that middle class is much smaller.  However, there is evidence the public is becoming aware of the same issues of quality, health, and equity that drive those markets here.

Everywhere we saw farmers seeking value-added markets.  Fruit growers were looking to turn grapes into the regionally famous pisco distilled beverage.  A group of dairy women started a guinea pig cooperative in order to finance their yogurt cooperative.  The highland community raises dozens of unique and delicious strains of potato organically; bringing them to market on the backs of llamas – what a story for the consumer!  A group of small producers on the eastern slopes of the Andes has received a prize for raising the best coffee in Perú.  But their markets in the capital Lima are limited because they are “outsiders,” so they are seeking to export to Europe and the U.S.

What will these farmers do together?  They have plans to share production skills.  That is fairly straightforward and will build relationships and confidence.  By the end of the workshop they were already talking about cooperating on trucking, product promotion, and even marketing.  Further workshops like the one we attended will involve new communities in the growing network.

What is our role as North Americans?  Our trip was part of a project linking Iowa State University and La Molina Agrarian University.  Project objectives are to cultivate teaching and research linkages, and also to link farmers and their organizations.  Peru's small farmers won't try to adopt our production models or most of our technology.  But the farmers we encountered were quite interested in PFI and our experiences with networking, market development, and working with institutions.  Certainly their primary agenda is learning from each other.  But the world is far too small now for North American farmers not to be part of the conversation.