The Role of Social Capital in Heifer’s Work

Posted on June 8, 2012 by Pierre Ferrari

This past week I traveled to Washington, D.C. to attend the Association for International Agriculture and Rural Development’s (AIARD) Annual Conference. The theme for the 2012 conference was “Priorities for Inclusive Agricultural and Rural Development.”

I was asked to serve as a panelist and was delighted to contribute my thoughts and provide examples of the progress Heifer has made on this topic. As I prepared my speech, I began to think about what information I wanted to share. I decided to focus on the importance of developing social capital for the poorest communities.

So, what does this mean, and how is Heifer incorporating it into our work?

Sumitra Devi, 28 years old, talks during a meeting of community members on Thursday March 10, 2011 at the Koirganwa village in India. Photo by Russell Powell, Courtesy of Heifer International

The World Bank defines social capital as “institutions, relationships, and norms that shape the quality and quantity of a society’s social interactions.” Through the impact of social capital, Heifer project participants are able to have sustainable development and prosper economically.

Social capital is an important aspect of Heifer’s Theory of Change, which is that the most vulnerable smallholder farmers, including women, can produce adequate food and surplus to feed their families, communities and the world, if their capacity is enhanced with the right inputs. Through social capital, Heifer project participants are able to organize and strengthen their existing groups/co-ops/alliances and enhance their values through Heifer’s 12 Cornerstones. Social capital builds trust and hope and brings communities together. It connects similar people and then helps them understand and connect with other diverse groups.

So how does Heifer measure this in our projects? Our project indicators provide information on two types of social capital – structural and cognitive. Structural social capital is the composition and practice of formal and informal local-level institutions that serve as instruments of community development. Measuring structural social capital involves evaluating how effective these institutions are at helping communities make the changes they desire to improve their lives. Cognitive social capital includes shared norms, values, attitudes, and beliefs that predispose people toward mutually beneficial, collective action. Cognitive social capital is specifically measured through participants’ perception.

Within the our projects, social capital can be seen by participants’ participation in the community organizations and networks (formal and informal) and their inclusion of diverse groups and access to services. It is also evident through commitment to Passing on the Gift and Sharing and Caring – two of our Cornerstones.

To help and engage the poorest communities, we need to develop social capital, beginning where they are along the development spectrum. It’s not crazy science – it is a demonstration of the connection humans need with each other.

Heifer has always been about working together and incorporating the values of a community. This is what has made us successful in the past and what will allow us to help even more families.

Juan Repays the Trees

Posted on February 14, 2012 by Brooke Edwards

Juan De Dios Carrasco Fernández (age 60) discovered his talent as a tour guide thanks to a simple coincidence. In 1998, he moonlighted as a photographer, taking photographs at social events in his village to earn extra money to support his four children. One day, while he was walking to a shop to have a roll of film developed, a woman asked him if he knew about Mulato Hill in Chongoyape. Juan told her he did and offered to show her the way. This first step as an accidental tour guide launched him on a long career in rural community tourism, which has made him the most important rural promoter on the northern coast of Peru.

Because he had lived in Chongoyape since he was 5 years old, his explanations to tourists also conveyed his love for its landscapes. That, combined with his extensive knowledge of the geography and history of the hill and its petroglyphs, led to an invaluable experience:

“Dr. Cabana, who was passionate about archeology, got so excited by my explanations that she cancelled all the meetings she had scheduled in Chiclayo just to stay and admire the place and listen to my stories. She asked me how much I charged for my work as a guide. That surprised me, because I thought people would only pay me for photos. So she told me that my work was excellent and valuable. That’s when I realized that this was also a job opportunity that could be a source of income for the people in my community, who, like people in most of the country, are marginalized and live in poverty, farming small plots and raising a few animals to survive.”

Excited by the possibility, Juan began to explore the hills near the area where he lived. Over time, his camera – his inseparable companion – captured the majesty of every one of the natural landscapes that he viewed with such pride.

Around 2000, Juan and a group of community members formed a small association of tour guides who were known for their eloquence in explaining the historical details of various places. Together they showed that Mulato Hill, the Chongoyape Reservoir and Chaparrí Hill had great potential as tourist attractions. Until then, no government organization had paid any attention to them.

Four years later, they contacted the Center for Research and Promotion of Sustainable Development (CIPDES), which helped them enhance their rural community tourism initiative in the Chaparrí Ecological Reserve, building the infrastructure needed to receive visitors. Eventually, Juan, his companions and the community organized and won legal recognition for the Association for Nature Conservation and Sustainable Tourism in Chaparrí (ACOTURCH).

“Businesspeople say tourism isn’t permanent. But for me, it’s a chance to show of the wonders of nature. If we conserve nature, we will have more opportunities and more tourism during our lifetimes and those of our children and grandchildren.”

In 2008, thanks to the collaboration with CIPDES, Juan de Dios and ACOTURCH began working with Heifer Peru through the ongoing project of sustainable Development in the Muchik Farming Community, Chongoyape, Lambayeque.

“With the project, we learned about agroecology, the sustainable management of dry forest resources, and political advocacy to promote community tourism in the region, laying the groundwork for food sovereignty in our farming community. We are improving our families’ living conditions. The agroecological farm plots provide nutritious food, and families can sell the surplus to generate income. Gender relations are improving, thanks to women’s leadership in small animal management. We can proudly say that they are the ones who organize the sharing of guinea pigs and make it sustainable. Thanks to their dynamic work, we have Passed on the Gift to 10 of our community’s 12 sectors. We have solidified our organizational system, so we can invest 40 percent of the reserve admission fees in maintaining the reserve and 60 percent in health and education for the neediest families in our farming community.”

Juan sees community tour guides as playing a very important role and says more effort is needed to ensure the professional quality of their work. That is the message he passes on to his companions, including his son, Antero, who at age 27 is also a photographer and tour guide:

“I always insist that our village should have the best trained people. That’s why education is important. People from other places always come here, and it would be embarrassing not to be able to tell them about the things we have here. God has guided me. I always tell my children that they must never stop studying. That’s why I always carry a pen in my pocket. Although my parents were illiterate, my mother worked hard to educate me, even though my father was opposed to the idea. She didn’t have money, so she paid for my primary school education with firewood. I went to high school after I was married. My wife Juana helped me. I got as far as the third year of high school, studying at night, and now I want to finish.”

The way Juan sees it, trees enabled him to get an education as a child, and now, as an adult, he is repaying them with his work as a tour guide, helping other people understand the importance of conservation:

“Love for trees is part of my nature. When I see a place where they’ve been cut or destroyed, I can’t help feeling angry.”

Juan has many dreams for his community, and more of them are fulfilled every year. Leaders from his community, many of whom are young men and women who have been trained as promoters, are often invited by universities and other regional and national organizations to share the experience of their community, which has been recognized by the national government and the regional government of Lambayeque as the first private conservation area in the country to be managed by a farming community. Their experience can serve as a model to catalyze the development of other farming communities in the country.

Heifer Supports Healthy Soil

Posted on December 5, 2011 by Brooke Edwards

Dolores shows us her composting recipe.

Today is World Soil Day. As you know, Heifer’s mission is to end hunger and poverty and care for the Earth. When we say “Earth,” we mean “earth,” too. It’s kind of a no-brainer that, as an organization promoting sustainable agriculture around the world, we’ve got a stake in helping our project communities improve their soil.

When I was in Peru, I visited the small farm of a woman named Dolores Delgado. The very first thing Dolores showed us was a poster illustrating the agroecological cycle of her farm. Part of this cycle was the elaborate recipe for liquid compost she and her husband learned through the Heifer project. You could really tell Dolores has this science down. She collects manure and urine from her guinea pigs and adds it to her vermicomposting (composting with worms, in case you didn’t take Latin) pile. When that compost is ready, she puts it and a whole long list of other ingredients into a big drum to ferment into a product called “biol.” Then, instead of spraying chemical fertilizers (which, let’s face it, aren’t good for anybody), she and her husband us a simple spray backpack to apply the organic biol fertilizer.

Dolores has crafted her guinea pig cages so collecting their manure and urine is a relatively easy task.

Dolores shows us her worm composting pile.

Although the project she’s participating in was fairly new at the time of our visit,
Dolores had already taken composting and improving her farm’s soil to a scientific level.

In addition to knowing they’re improving the soil and protecting the environment,
Dolores and her husband don’t have to worry about exposing themselves or their livestock to dangerous chemicals.

This is what a lot of the terrain looks like in the parts of Peru we visited–a bit on the barren side.

Improving the soil on Dolores’s farm–and on any other–has many implications. In the part of the world where she lives, the soil is generally pretty poor. Instead of neglecting the soil, leading to soil erosion, Dolores grows nutritious fodder for her guinea pigs, which also means she doesn’t have to spend as much money feeding them. Her vegetable garden yields significantly better results than before she began using agroecological practices.

Compare this with the photo above. A huge difference, right?

Give Trees: The Perfect Alternative Gift for Vegetarians

Posted on December 2, 2011 by Brooke Edwards

All Heifer projects strive for sustainability, and that’s why we often provide trees of different varieties to families in need. Trees enrich the air with oxygen, help maintain soils and provide fruits and nuts, as well.

Watch this video to see how Heifer’s efforts at reforestation and other agroecological methods are promoting soil conservation, erosion control and improved farming in Ecuador.

Fruits and Fodder
Planting trees ensures families have a source of fodder for livestock. Fruit- and nut-bearing trees provide nutritious and fresh foods, and surpluses can increase income.

Better Soil
In many countries where Heifer works, poor families cook on wood-burning stoves. Families must cut down trees to ensure they have enough firewood. Without trees, soil washes away. Tree roots hold together topsoil and help to sustain moisture and nutrients.

Firewood
With many families foraging for firewood in similar areas, sometimes families have to walk miles just to find enough wood to burn so they can cook a meal. When families plant trees, firewood is no lnger scarce and is available in the immediate area.

This holiday season, give the gift of trees in honor of your tree-hugging, vegetarian sister-in-law; and help a community grow food for themselves and their livestock while preventing soil erosion and water loss. And learn more about Heifer’s agroecology and agroforestry work by digging into our archives.

Heifer Works in 8 out of 10 Countries Most At Risk To Climate Change

Posted on November 21, 2011 by Brooke Edwards

Heifer participant in Sierra Leone.

Haiti, Bangladesh, Zimbabwe, Sierra Leone, Madagascar, Cambodia, Mozambique, Democratic Republic of Congo, Malawi and the Philippines. According to a report by the British risk analysis firm, Maplecroft, these 10 countries are at the most extreme risk for impacts caused by climate change.

According to a post on EarthSky:

Maplecroft analyzed the vulnerability of 193 countries to climate change impacts. They first evaluated the degree to which countries will be exposed to extreme weather events and other climate-related natural disasters. Next, the company assessed the ability of countries to cope with climate change impacts by evaluating factors such as governmental effectiveness, infrastructure capacity and the availability of natural resources.

The report makes it clear that it is mostly the poorest sections of society that will bear the brunt of climate change impacts.

Of the 10 countries listed, Heifer works in all but two (Madagascar and DRC). Improving communities’ resilience to climate change and disaster is integrated into many of our projects, particularly those in high risk areas. Last month I posted about a project of ours in the Philippines that was in the midst of Community-Managed Disaster Risk Reduction training when torrential rains caused damaging floods, further stressing the importance of the training.

By working with small farmers to find the most environmentally sensitive and beneficial approaches to agriculture, we are doing our part to curb climate change while reducing the risks faced by our project communities. In fact, Heifer International’s East Africa Dairy Development Initiative was mentioned in a report titled “Achieving Food Security in the Face of Climate Change” as an example of how programs can address food security in the context of climate change.

If you’re interested in funding work in a country from this top-10 high-risk list, check out the Integrated Livestock Development Project in Sierra Leone, which focuses on a region of Sierra Leone facing rapid population growth, a high incidence of communicable diseases, and increased pressure on natural resources and physical infrastructure. By providing participants with opportunities to build livelihoods using sustainable farming practices, this project will strengthen the communities and the environment at the same time.

7 Billion Mouths to Feed: Small Farmers are Still the Answer

Posted on October 31, 2011 by Brooke Edwards

Today the world’s population hit 7 billion. That’s 7 billion humans who need food and water to survive, let alone thrive.

I live in Little Rock, a small southern city whose metro area population is less than 700,000. It’s really hard for me to imagine what 7 billion people means on a day-to-day basis.

This video from National Geographic helps put 7 billion into perspective.

It really is about balance, not space. Inequity in the distribution and use of the world’s resources is the problem. The only way to see improvements in the quality of life for the global population will be through a more equitable distribution of resources (food, water, money, power, and so on). At Heifer, we approach this problem in two ways. First, we help redistribute financial resources. We take the generous gifts of our donors and turn them into livestock, seeds, equipment, training and so on. Second, we help our participants–largely the rural poor–make the absolute best use of what resources they do have.

Earlier this year, Olivier De Schutter, United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food reported that sustainable, agroecological farming will be the answer to feeding the expected 9 billion people to live on our planet in 2050. A post on Impatient Optimists, the blog of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, stated:

At the Foundation, we believe that smallholder-based productivity growth is the most leveraged pathway by which we can address poverty reduction. Of the 1.4 billion people who live in extreme poverty and almost 1 billion are estimated to be chronically undernourished, approximately three quarters live in rural areas; and an overwhelming majority of these poor participate in agriculture. By focusing on smallholders’ productivity we address not only poverty but also undernutrition.

Supporting smallholder farmers engaged in sustainable agriculture is what we do at Heifer. And we have plans to do this even bigger and with greater impact. But it’s not enough. There have to be more of us working to end hunger and poverty while protecting the Earth. Doing nothing is unacceptable. Doing nothing leads to 15 million children dying every year from hunger. Doing nothing leaves children who survive starvation grossly stunted.

7 billion people aren’t the problem.

We are the solution.

October is Fair Trade Month: Take Action Every Day

Posted on October 27, 2011 by Brooke Edwards

Now that the month is nearly over, I’ve just become aware that October is Fair Trade Month. I can’t tell you how tricky it is to keep up with everything going on in our ever-connected world.

Photo by Dave Anderson

Buying Fair Trade products is one of the ultimate ways to vote with your dollar. Yes, you will pay a premium price for that banana or bag of sugar. But that premium price not only pays a fairer share to the farmers who grew the products, it also allows the supported communities to pay for social, economic and environmental development projects through a community premium fund. You can read more about the impacts Fair Trade has on farming communities around the world on the Fair Trade USA website.

Heifer has a number of farmers around the world growing Fair Trade products. I had the pleasure of meeting Wilson Sanchez, an Ecuadorian farmer growing Fair Trade bananas back in August. His agroecological farm was amazing. And we’ve partnered with Green Mountain Coffee for quite some time on projects with Fair Trade coffee growers. Heifer’s role with these farming communities is to help them diversify their diets and incomes, because even Fair Trade farmers benefit from growing more than single crops of bananas, coffee, sugar or the like.

Photo by Dave Anderson

The problem I’m finding in my personal life, however, is the low accessibility of Fair Trade options in my local grocery store. Here in Little Rock, Arkansas, my best bet on finding Fair Trade products is to go to Whole Foods. Problem is, the overall cost of shopping there makes it cost prohibitive to do my entire Sunday grocery trip there, and it’s completely out of my way for a supplemental grocery trip. What I need is for my neighborhood grocery store to carry more Fair Trade products.

So here’s what I’ve done. You can do it, too. I just submitted an online comment to Kroger, the grocery store where I do most of my grocery shopping. If your grocery store has a website, chances are you can submit a comment online. If not, this would be a pretty easy thing to hand deliver to your store manager. Here’s what I wrote:

October is Fair Trade Month. I’d like to request that my local Kroger store (Beechwood in Little Rock, Arkansas) offer more Fair Trade options. The Fair Trade label assures a product that is socially and environmentally sustainable, and that is something I as a Kroger customer believe in. Specifically, I would like to see Fair Trade options for bananas and other fruits, cocoa and chocolate products, coffee, honey, herbs and spices, nuts and oilseeds, sugar and tea.

When I want to purchase these types of products, I am currently forced to take my business elsewhere; namely to Whole Foods. Kroger is my preferred store, but often my desire for Fair Trade products overrides my preference. It would be fantastic not to have to make that decision, to have a wide range of Fair Trade products consistently available at Kroger.

Thank you for your consideration,

Brooke Edwards

The Big Deal About Fair Trade Bananas

Posted on September 2, 2011 by Brooke Edwards

As I mentioned yesterday, our friendly Ecuadorian banana farmer, Wilson Sanchez, is a member of the Association of Small Banana Producers El Guabo, which brings together 14 smaller groups of banana producers (accounting for around 320 active producers in total). El Guabo is a pioneer in Ecuador in associative commercialization for the export of bananas under Fair Trade conditions and with organic certification. Here’s a link to a good summary of El Guabo‘s work.

Outside a local El Guabo office.

So where does Heifer come in?

In January 2011, Heifer began implementing a project in partnership with El Guabo. The project, Strengthening the Productive Diversity of Agro-Forestry Small Holders in El Oro, Azuay and Guayas, will benefit a total of 200 families belonging to El Guabo who are considered vulnerable due to their low farm production.

While farmers earn a better price for their bananas through membership with El Guabo, their income and standard of living remain lower than they would like. They farm on steep land and lack sufficient irrigation to increase their yields. Family diets lack nutritional diversity as most of the effort is put into growing bananas for export.

Wilson Sanchez

Sanchez and his fellow Heifer participants, however, are receiving irrigation systems, livestock and training. By growing five or six different crops (bananas, cocoa, citrus, timber trees, etc.), they’re not only diversifying their sources of income, but their diets as well. Sanchez is raising hogs–a gift from Heifer–that he feeds excess bananas not fit for sale. In the coming year, Heifer Ecuador will work with participants to teach them how to grow vegetable gardens for their families’ consumption (kitchen gardens are less common in this part of the world so focused on exports), which will allow them to feed themselves and rely less on external markets.

Heifer will also provide capacity building and organizational strengthening for local partners within the El Guabo network.

So where do you come in?

Buy Fair Trade bananas!

Sure, they’re more expensive. But those extra pennies per pound support small farm families, provide medical clinics in banana-growing communities, pay teachers’ salaries to educate the children of banana farmers, provide retirement benefits for the hard-working farmers who grow the fruit we have come to rely on year-round.

Want to do even better?

Make sure the Fair Trade bananas you’re buying are certified organic, too.

Yes, it’s true: not all Fair Trade bananas are created equal. There are actually three classes of bananas sold under the Fair Trade label. Conventional Fair Trade bananas are grown on small family farms and must meet the same social requirements as organic, but they still use chemicals that are harmful to the planet, the producer and the consumer. Organic Fair Trade bananas are grown using organic standards, but still rely on the monocrop model, which is not only difficult to do, but it also means the farmers are vulnerable in their lack of diversity (income and diet). Agroforestry Fair Trade bananas are what our participants are growing, and they go beyond organic standards. Unfortunately, there is not currently a method used to distinguish agroforestry Fair Trade bananas from organic Fair Trade bananas. This is something the folks with El Guabo recognize as a weakness, but the onus is on us, the consumers, to demand more. I’m still working out the best way to do this, but one place to start is to tell your grocer you want to know: are these organic Fair Trade bananas agroforestry bananas?

Here are some interesting banana resources:
Equal Exchange
Green America
Fairtrade International
Fair Trade USA
Banana Link
The Banana Trade War (an article)

And we’re not the only ones talking about Fair Trade bananas this week. Nourishing the Planet has a guest post up today from Jessica Jones of Oke USA Fruit Company, which is the company purchasing El Guabo members’ bananas.

All in a Day’s Work: Protecting Bananas for Export

Posted on September 1, 2011 by Brooke Edwards

Watch these videos. This is Wilson Sanchez, and he’s showing us some of the work he must do to every banana plant intended for export from his agroecological banana farm in rural Ecuador.

The big green bag is used to protect the bananas from birds and insects. These particular bags are called “bio bags,” and they’re made by only one company. Unlike the bags used by conventional banana plantations, these bio bags do not contain chemical pesticides. The smaller bits are called “diapers,” and they’re used to protect the growing bananas from each other. Sanchez and other farmers use each bag and each diaper twice. At the end of the season, they hire a truck to pick up the used bags to take to the recycling plant. The bio bags cost $7 for a box of 100; I didn’t catch the cost of the diapers. That’s not including the labor of doing this over and over again.

Thankfully, Sanchez belongs to El Guabo, an association to protect small banana producers. It is through El Guabo that Sanchez is a Heifer project participant. I’ll tell you more about El Guabo later, but a significant benefit of belonging to the association is health coverage. You know, in case Sanchez falls off his ladder and breaks a leg. That’s not a luxury afforded a typical commercial banana plantation worker.

Why the added cost and so much trouble? Sanchez put it plainly: “Europeans eat with their eyes.” (Don’t think we’re any better in the United States.)

This is what an Agroecological Banana Farm Looks Like

Posted on August 31, 2011 by Brooke Edwards

Yesterday, I posted a couple of pictures I took of conventional banana plantations outside Machala, Ecuador. I think probably my favorite day in Ecuador was the day we visited Wilson Sanchez’s agroecological banana farm, which was about as opposite from those plantations as you could get. It was so tropical, so diverse. Visually, it was the most interesting place I’ve ever been.