At right, Victor Valencia,, a native who works with Kechuaymara in his region ofBolivia. Here he plays flute for friends andfellow riders on Bike-Aid's cross-country bike tour (see preceding article) in 1990. The Partner Rider program, sponsored by the Overseas Development Network; brings people like Victor in touch with everyday people in the US. The personal contact sparks awarenes·s ofthe level ofexploitation and destruction wrought by standard capitalist development in the Third World. cooking workshops on old and new ways of preparing both tarwi and quinoa. Unlike conventional development efforts; the project was conceived and implemented in a culturally appropriate manner. The ldemand qriginated with · the beneficiaries, who asked Kechuaymara staff to help them rese?rch solutions, and organize them. Thankfully, this was not a scheme designed by some foreign aid worker. Chris Auriemma, a UC Santa Cruz student who worked with Kechuaymara, explained that "the field staff came from the c~mmunities and understood the v(!.lues, humor and problems of the people." Workshops were conducted in Aymara and Quechua, instead of only in Spanish, with accessible booklets depicting daily life in the communities.. Working with crops indigenous to the region, . Kechuaymara avoided many problems plaguii:ig foreigninitiated development projects. Many of these try to introduce new foods into established diets, and are often rejected by the beneficiaries for various reasons, including taste. Preparing the new 'food can take more time, more firewood, or an entirely different type of stove. Unlike projects suppo'rted·through the US goveminent' s Alliance for Progress, which introduced wheat and other foods to the region, Kechuaymara did not seek to reorient people's culture but rather to strengthen it. For many people throughout the'globe, land tenure and the lack of arable land are major factors limiting the implementation of development projects. Even when a group receives outside resqurces and holds a claim to some, private or public land, ownership and use can be challenged and altered by governments and large regional landholders. Luckily the relatively poor soil quality in the altiplano protected the land from capital-intensive production. The land has remained the sour~e of the people's subsistence. Since land tenure was secure,' th~ Nutrici6n y Cultivos . Andinos project was able to implement the Community Seed Banks program. Community seed banks increase .the quality of seeds and ensure a "rotating fund'' of seeds, available to more and Page 36 RAIN Summer 1994 Volume XIV, Number 4 'more families. After harvesting enough seed for food and next year's crop, families return the amount of seed lent to them, plus an "interest" paid in seed. In this way, the project is self-sustaining and expanding. The concept of community seed banks' contrasts with development strategies promoting the use of hybrid seeds: Hybrid seeds may improve crop yields but don't produce seeds for the next 'year and thus begin a cycle of dependency. Farmers who no longer produ~e seeds become dependent on seed companies, the changing price of seed, .and costly fertilizers. In addition, the hybrid seeds lack the immunities of local species and therefore require expensive and dangerous pesticides. Subsistence farmers, who are only marginally integrated into the cash economy, do not have the money to make such purchases. According to the report compiled by Kechuaymara, the decision to incorporate seed banks came from consultations in village women's centers..Much of Kechuaymara's work is based upon women's participation. The Nutrici6n y Cultivos Andinos project was no exception, especially since women play a central role in agricultural production. The women both recommended and implemented the Seed Banks. · Women do a large part of the agricultural work throughout the world, but traditional development projects largely ignore them. Conventional development projects favor mechanized agriculture, benefiting big farms most often owned by men. Even on small farms, men are almost always the operators of machinery. These development projects have undermined the efforts of women to feed their families by encouraging men to grow export crops for cash. In other cases, common land cultivated by women is privatized into the hands of men. In contrast, Kechuaymara made no effort to change the pattern of land use,, aside from the re-introduction of higher
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy NTc4NTAz