Policy Brief Two: Food Problems in a Developing Country: Bolivia

Pro-Poor Development in Bolivia

Bolivia is one of the poorest counties in Latin America. While poverty affects two-thirds of the country’s population, the rural (and mostly indigenous) people live with a poverty rate of about 80 percent (WFP). The World Food Program has focused its efforts on education and fighting child malnutrition. While these are important steps in the development of the next generation of healthy Bolivians, it does necessarily help the indigenous population in the most remote areas of the country. These programs ask the indigenous people to change many aspects of the life they have been leading for centuries. However, many researchers have been looking into other options to supplement food aid and development assistance in Bolivia and surrounding countries. Collective action and outside agents working directly with communities, both of which have been referred to as “pro-poor” developments, hold the most promise to allow rural peoples to continue their subsistence agriculture while rising above the poverty threshold.

The FAO has started a Pro-Poor Livestock Policy Initiative (PPLPI) to look into livestock improvements in less developed counties and make policy suggestions. In the PPLPI’s report on Bolivia, they cite the Bolivian weak government as a source of instability and a roadblock for regulation. However, they also suggest that the government could serve two vital roles. The first is to regulate animal health and sanitation, such as monitoring for Food and Mouth Disease (PPLPI, 1). The second is to regulate and monitor slaughterhouse conditions to ensure food safety. These improvements would benefit Bolivians participating in the livestock sector overall, but in order to benefit the rural poor, the PPLPI says small producers and associations need to become more experienced at making political change (PPLPI, 1).

The PPLPI identified four key areas to focus on to ensure the rural population can benefit from expansion of livestock production. The first is strengthening the small producers’ associations, which are “relatively young, weak, and inexperienced at political lobbying” (PPLPI, 1). Second is strengthening the municipal governments so that they have the clout and authority to carry out regulation and to decentralize authority and the change-making capacity of rural areas. Third is institutional reforms; creating a “stable, merit-based bureaucracy” rather than one based on patronage (PPLPI, 2). Finally, the National Service for Agricultural and Livestock Sanitation (SENASAG) needs to redirect its attention to camelid herders in rural areas rather than cattle elsewhere. This means shifting energy to poorer areas rather than working strictly with the “large, wealthy ranchers” (PPLPI, 2).

All these suggestions are important things for Bolivia to tackle. However, it depends heavily on political and governmental change, which the PPLPI itself admits is unstable. The International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) has produced two reports who’s authors suggest the rural poor can help themselves with the help of their communities, NGOs, and an influx of resources to get them on their way.

Mario Monge, Frank Hartwich, and Daniel Halgin put forward the report “How Change Agents and Social Capital Influence the Adoption of Innovations among Small Farmer,” in which they write that farming communities in Bolivia are tight-knit. Monge et al. think that farmers could best adopt new knowledge and technology best through their interactions with one another. They also suggest that collective action can be an effective tool for coping with all the uncertainties of agriculture. Collective action can help in “risk-sharing” and with the “food insecurity, environmental, and price risks associated with innovations” (Monge et al, 8). While one farmer cannot necessarily afford new machinery and technology, a group of farmers might be able to.

In another IFPRI report, Andre Devaux et al look specifically at Papa Andina, a “regional initiative that promote pro-poor development” as an example of the success of collective action to break into markets (Devaux et al, 3). This group consolidates native potatoes produced in rural areas and packages them to be sold in urban grocery stores and markets. In this way, the farmers can maintain cultivation of what has been produced historically and culturally while making a small profit.

Challenges in this sort of work include having effective facilitation for the collectives, “ensuring the sustainability of collective action”, growth and the challenges of scaling up, initial costs of participating, and gender equity (Devaux et al, 36). The balance has to be maintained between what farmers are growing to subsist and what they are growing for market, as well as making sure that markets are sustained and that the income is relatively constant.

However challenging the process of developing collectives is, they can be enormously beneficial to the communities. While it takes time and effort to develop these groups, make sure they have effective leadership, and find markets for the products, collective action “can stimulate innovation in ways that contribute to smallholder market integration and poverty reduction” (Devaux et al, 38).

While collective action cannot realistically be implemented across the globe, whether on a large scale, due to global economic pressures or, on a small scale, the lack of adequate leadership in a community, it seems to be working in Bolivia. In a country where 59 percent of the rural population does not have the income to meet basic food needs, improving the income and production capacity of communities is crucial (WFP). While the government of Bolivia remains unstable, I believe that collective action could solve food issues in these specific areas of rural Bolivia. I agree that the country could benefit from government regulation, as suggested by the PPLPI. However, I think that organizations like Papa Andina are the most beneficial in rural Bolivia, both on an economic and social level. While farmers in India and elsewhere slowly lose their ancient seed as agribusiness moves in with the new, I think it is important for the indigenous peoples to be able to make a living from their native varieties as a way of preserving their way of life. The best thing the “developed world” can do is to facilitate the formation and development of effective facilitators to improve the chances of successful collective action groups.

Works Cited

"Bolivia." WFP | United Nations World Food Programme - Fighting Hunger Worldwide. 2011. Web. 17 Apr. 2011. .

Devaux, Andre, Claudio Velasco, Gaston Lopez, Thomas Bernet, Miguel Ordinola, Hernan Pico, Graham Thiele, and Douglas Horton. "Collective Action for Innovation and Small Farmer Market Access: The Papa Andina Experience." CAPRi and IFPRI, Oct. 2007. Web. 17 Apr. 2011. .

Fairfield, Tasha. "The Politics of Livestock Sector Policy and the Rural Poor." FAO and PPLPI, 2004. Web. 17 Apr. 2011. .

Monge, Mario, Frank Hartwich, and Daniel Halgin. "How Change Agents and Social Capital Influence the Adoption of Innovations among Small Farmers." IFPRI, Apr. 2008. Web. 17 Apr. 2011. .