The project Huaral aims at generating useful, credible, comprehensible, suitable, confidential information and making it accessible to all farmers in the Huaral Valley in Peru. This information should assist the farmers in making decisions and strengthen their position in negotiations, and so enable them to hold their own in the long-term on the market. This project was initiated by the small farmers organized in the Irrigation Cooperative of the Huaral Valley, members of 17 irrigation commissions. Together they farm ca. 21,000 hectares. The project was launched in cooperation with the Centro Peruano de Estudios Sociales—CEPES.

By structuring and operating a local information system for agricultural matters on the Internet, the project attempts to provide direct assistance to ca. 6,000 poor small farmers who own little property and at present live from subsistence farming. The goal is to enable all farmers to participate profitably in the market through modern information and communications technologies, while increasing recognition for their irrigation organisations.

Peruvian small farmers lack adequate and reliable information on the prices of seeds and end products. Their access to technological services is also very limited. This new system provides support for all technical and economic decisions, and so enables them to improve their incomes.

A central strategy of the project is to develop it in cooperation with the inhabitants who are to benefit from it and local institutions. Due to this experience, other Peruvian agricultural organisations, even public institutions, have been inspired to emulate it.

In addition, its infrastructure for telecommunications and the Internet is now available to the entire rural population of the three districts included in the Irrigation Cooperative (Chancay, Huaral and Aucallama). Hence, indirectly, the entire population of the area benefits from the system, in particular the 15- to 40-year olds, the majority of whom—some 14,000—are not members of the Irrigation Cooperative.


Links: http://www.huaral.org

CEPES – Centro Peruano de Estudios Sociales (Centre for Social Studies in Peru)—was founded in 1976 as an institution for rural development. Its objective is to improve the conditions of life of the rural population and so contribute to creating a more just and democratic society. Alongside all practical assignments, CEPES also strives to facilitate the availability of production services—locally, regionally and nationally—for small farmers and so increase their marketability. The Irrigation Cooperative of Chancay-Huaral was founded on September 14, 1981. It has 6,152 members from the region of Chancay—Huaral who are grouped in 17 irrigation commissions.