Back to Pomabamba

Last Monday evening, July 6th, we left Huaraz for our second trip to Pomabamba. We had intended to leave Sunday morning but the truck’s scheduled maintenance wasn’t completed until late the following afternoon. Even so, it was just in time as a three day national protest by various groups began Tuesday morning interupting inter-city traffic across the country.

In Pomabamba we are coaching a company named Polaris. Polaris facilitates the productive chain for guinea pigs. The small livestock are typically raised in a casual manner by farming families for self-consumption. They are an important source of nutrition and a popular dish in Peru. In urban centres, especially during holidays, there is a strong demand for guinea pigs and they command a good price in the market.

Under the Alli Allpa program (meaning “Good Earth” in Quechua) funded by Antamina, CARE Peru is focusing on ten agricultural productive chains in the Ancash region that have strong market potential. Farming families that successfully enter a chain have the opportunity to generate additional income and raise their standard of living. In this case it is through the intensive breeding of guinea pigs.

Polaris is lead by Tania Barreto (in photo to left) and consists of four agronomists that are contracted by CARE Peru to provide technical assistance on intensively raising guinea pigs to upwards of 120 families in Conchucos Norte. The technical assistance includes: identifying and treating ailments, consulting on proper nutrition, crossing breeds, ensuring good housing, etc… Polaris cannot depend indefinitely on the contracts from the Alli Allpa program via CARE Peru. As a result, the company has identified several business opportunities and expanded its services to include the sale of medicine for guinea pigs, the production and sale of balanced feed, and the collection and resale of the livestock in local markets. The success of the company will ensure continuity in the productive chain once development assistance is retired.

Following the first introductory meeting with Polaris in Huaraz, Tania identified a number of areas where she believed coaching was required and, in our first session, during the first trip to Pomabamba, we concentrated on the basics of financial statements. On that trip we also spent a day going from farm to farm to meet five producers – as many as were possible traveling through the difficult terrain. This was an eye-opening experience and, despite some success stories, it was apparent that more significant problems faced the company.

Most of the producers were not performing at levels that had been anticipated. This has two implications. The implication for Polaris is that it will have neither sufficient market for its balanced feed, nor sufficient produce to collect for resale to be profitable. The implication for the farmers is that they have not reached levels of production where they can fully benefit from their efforts as well as repay credit borrowed from the local cooperative used to begin their intensive breeding operations.

The subsequent coaching session in Huaraz was a group discussion aimed at identifying specific problems and then solutions to improve producer production. For example, the immune system of a guinea pig is weaker during the rainy season and they become susceptible to salmonella. Many producers will lose guinea pigs en masse and will try to sell most of their livestock before it strikes. Not only does this drive down the price of their product but, as fast as they may breed, it presents a problem when they try to reach critical production levels later in the year. One solution is to create a video testimonial, which can be replayed on a laptop during technical visits, of a farmer – a trusted source - who made a small investment in preventative medicine and saw very low mortality rates for the season.

On this trip to Pomabamba we spent Wednesday creating a detailed action plan with the dates and people responsible for following through with the tasks identified in our previous session.

Unfortunately, the credit problem goes beyond the ability to repay and on Tuesday we met with Marcos Navarre, the manager of the local Cooperative, to learn more about how loans guaranteed by the mining fund were distributed to 50 farming families. In the afternoon we also participated in a meeting with both the Cooperative and Polaris. In an effort to mitigate the potential default rates, the Cooperative agreed to join Polaris in a series of training sessions to be given to farmers in four communities in the region. The Cooperative will provide much needed orientation to the farmers for whom the use of credit is not yet well understood.