Our intervention model is a referential scheme to guide the fulfillment of our mission, on the other hand we have an Intervention Ladder, which represents the different levels of transformation that we want to achieve with the families with whom we work. In this newsletter we want to share two activities that we carry out during the first level of our Intervention Ladder and that are essential to motivate families to join the agroecological transition process and to begin planning the changes they want on their farms. These two activities are the Observation Trip and the Farm Redesign.
Observation, Inspiration and Motivation Trip with New Communities
Tour of a farm during the Observation Trip in the community of Guagalá.
Two new communities from the Otavalo and Ibarra cantons visited the Agroecological Transition processes carried out by the Guagalá and Puetaquí communities in Pimampiro.
In the community of Guagalá, they visited the farm of Mrs. Blanquita Obando, who has dedicated a large part of her life to the diversification of her farm, currently she has managed to position the farm as an agrotourism potential, her main activity being the diversity of fruit trees, she currently has around 32 species of fruit trees, she mentions that thanks to the diversification on her farm she has been able to maintain a constant production of fruits, she also mentions that this has allowed her soil not to degrade, due to the very steep slopes and since it began the change of cultivation has implemented physical practices of soil conservation and other practices such as minimum tillage, which has allowed the improvement of the landscape of his farm.
Visit of new groups to the community of Guagalá.
Group of Women from the Puetaquí Community receiving participants from new communities through an Observation Trip.
On the other hand, in the community of Puetaquí, the members of the group Caminando hacia el Futuro de Puetaquí have been organizing themselves in the same way to receive people and to know the processes in which they have been working, one of them is the bio-inputs that have adopted and adapted for use in their crops, also, the seed bank.
The group continues to organize itself to receive people or organizations and show the experiences they have been acquiring, so they have organized themselves to receive people for the seed fair that has been held annually, they have also organized for the living classroom, to receive students and new communities. For these activities they have received economic incentives for feeding the participants and the explanation of the experiences acquired during the processes.
Farms Redesign
Farm Redesign is a planning and management tool at the family level. It represents the desires and aspirations that the family has in an orderly model of objectives, strategies and activities to achieve them. All this is based on the knowledge, experiences and needs that the family has towards their farm.
The farm redesign is one of the first activities that we carry out with the groups in which we begin a new process of Agroecological Transition. On this occasion we share the experience of the application of this tool from the Santo Domingo de Guzmán community, who participated in the observation tour to learn about the experiences of farmers who have been working in the intervention process of the Tierra Viva Foundation.
The community is located in the Ibarra district approximately 15 minutes from the city center. Here, 10 present and future maps were made as part of the farm redesign. The first step is to take a tour of the farms to learn about and determine the different biophysical aspects that make them up and determine their current status. After the tour, the family meets at home to draw all these elements on a sheet of paper. All the information collected and its potential are analyzed.
Participant from the Santo Domingo de Guzmán community in the Ibarra canton drawing their Future Map.
Once the potential of their farm has been analyzed and discussed with the family, the Future Map is drawn. This map is the main planning tool to start an Agroecological Transition process. It includes the dreams and aspirations that the family has to improve their farm. In the community of Santo Domingo de Guzmán, the main interest is to increase diversity through the planting of fruit trees. They are interested in learning about planting and managing these plants. All these activities are included in an action plan that is carried out throughout the year in order to generate the changes that families want to see on their farms.
Participants from the Guanancí community in the Otavalo canton working on the redesign of their farm.
On the other hand, we have seen that the redesign of farms helps families to make visible or realize some resources that had been hidden, identify underutilized spaces and better plan how to take advantage of them.
As part of the monitoring process that we carry out, each year we carry out a participatory evaluation of the farm redesigns. For this we call on families to expose their current and future maps with their companions. During the exhibition, the activities that have been carried out during the year and the changes that have been achieved are presented.
This activity also helps the technicians to evaluate the intervention work that we have been carrying out and, together with the families, to identify the needs that are emerging in order to achieve the objectives that have been set in their redesigns.
If you want to know more about the work we do, contact us through the link in the menu or send us an email to contacto@tierravivaecuador.org.