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ADRA Wins Award for Innovative Approach that Increases Farmers' Income For more information, contact: John Torres, Senior Public Relations Manager To donate to ADRA go to:
SILVER SPRING, Md. - The Adventist Development and Relief Agency (ADRA) recently won a Best Practices award that highlighted a project intervention that enabled Bolivian farmers to increase their incomes by adopting new agricultural approaches, including the improvement of farming techniques, the production of highly demanded crops, and the creation of linkages with markets. The Best Practices and Innovations Initiative Award, granted by InterAction, the largest coalition of U.S.-based international non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that focus on the world’s poor and most vulnerable, recognized ADRA’s intervention for its “effectiveness, efficiency, gender equity, sustainability and replicability.” “We are honored to receive this award, which reflects and recognizes the excellent work of ADRA’s dedicated staff in Bolivia and elsewhere who were involved in this project,” said Daniel Wortman, Bureau Chief for Program Management at ADRA International. “This will also contribute to ADRA’s ongoing efforts to further position our organization to access funding and implement market-led agricultural projects to address critical needs in other countries as well.” This market-oriented intervention was implemented under a $14.1-million integrated food security project that was funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) between 2002 and 2008, ADRA targeted smallholder farmer households in Bolivia, implementing a demand-driven approach to enhance the use of market information to increase the incomes of farmers in 77 communities in the municipalities of Camargo, San Lucas, Incahuasi and Culpina in the southern Chuquisaca Department. Throughout the implementation of this project called “Food Security: A Market-Oriented Approach, Supported by Integrated Development for Bolivia,” ADRA’s emphasis on producing according to market specifications and the facilitation of market linkages resulted in a fifty-fold increase in the value of sales, suggesting that smallholder farmers respond positively to economic incentives, and facilitating market linkages helps to spur interest, increase farmers’ participation, and can improve technology adoption. In Bolivia, where poverty is one of the most prominent causes of food insecurity and is most extreme among the rural population, ADRA worked to tackle a number of existing challenges, including low agricultural productivity, geographical isolation, weak and underdeveloped market linkages, water scarcity and lack of access to water for irrigation, degraded natural resources, and lack of agricultural support services, technical and financial. Participating farmers indicated that as a result of the project they had more resources to improve their diets, fix their homes, and keep their children in school. Others were able to invest in the purchase of fertilizers, improved seeds, cattle, and machinery. In addition, the project emphasized the implementation of environmentally sound practices by promoting the reduction of soil erosion, the improvement of soil fertility, and the enhancement of communities’ capacity to manage natural resources. Around the world, ADRA continues to increasingly enhance its capacity to implement market-led agricultural projects that help address food insecurity in vulnerable communities. For more than 15 years, ADRA Bolivia has been implementing projects in the areas of health, education, disaster prevention and mitigation, income generation, environment, infrastructure, and basic services. Follow ADRA on Twitter and Facebook to get the latest information as it happens. ADRA is a non-governmental organization present in 125 countries providing sustainable community development and disaster relief without regard to political or religious association, age, gender, race or ethnicity. For more information about ADRA, visit www.adra.org. Author: Hearly Mayr |
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