Union of Farmer and Indigenous

Empowered lives. Resilient nations. UNION OF FARMER AND INDIGENOUS ORGANIZATIONS OF COTACACHI (UNORCAC) Ecuador Equator Initiative Case Studies Local sustainable development solutions for people, nature, and resilient communities UNDP EQUATOR INITIATIVE CASE STUDY SERIES Local and indigenous communities across the world are advancing innovative sustainable development solutions that work for people and for nature. Few publications or case studies tell the full story of how such initiatives evolve, the breadth of their impacts, or how they change over time. Fewer still have undertaken to tell these stories with community practitioners themselves guiding the narrative. To mark its 10-year anniversary, the Equator Initiative aims to fill this gap. The following case study is one in a growing series that details the work of Equator Prize winners – vetted and peer-reviewed best practices in community-based environmental conservation and sustainable livelihoods. These cases are intended to inspire the policy dialogue needed to take local success to scale, to improve the global knowledge base on local environment and development solutions, and to serve as models for replication. Case studies are best viewed and understood with reference to ‘The Power of Local Action: Lessons from 10 Years of the Equator Prize’, a compendium of lessons learned and policy guidance that draws from the case material. Click on the map to visit the Equator Initiative’s searchable case study database. Editors Editor-in-Chief: Joseph Corcoran Managing Editor: Oliver Hughes Contributing Editors: Dearbhla Keegan, Matthew Konsa, Erin Lewis, Whitney Wilding Contributing Writers Edayatu Abieodun Lamptey, Erin Atwell, Toni Blackman, Jonathan Clay, Joseph Corcoran, Larissa Currado, Sarah Gordon, Oliver Hughes, Wen-Juan Jiang, Sonal Kanabar, Dearbhla Keegan, Matthew Konsa, Rachael Lader, Patrick Lee, Erin Lewis, Jona Liebl, Mengning Ma, Mary McGraw, Gabriele Orlandi, Juliana Quaresma, Peter Schecter, Martin Sommerschuh, Whitney Wilding, Luna Wu Design Oliver Hughes, Dearbhla Keegan, Matthew Konsa, Kimberly Koserowski, Erin Lewis, John Mulqueen, Lorena de la Parra, Brandon Payne, Mariajosé Satizábal G. Acknowledgements The Equator Initiative acknowledges with gratitude the Union of Farmer and Indigenous Organizations of Cotacachi (UNORCAC), and in particular the guidance and inputs of Rumiñahui Anrango and Martha Arotingo. All photo credits courtesy of UNORCAC. Maps courtesy of CIA World Factbook and Wikipedia. Suggested Citation United Nations Development Programme. 2012. Union of Farmer and Indigenous Organizations of Cotacachi (UNORCAC), Ecuador. Equator Initiative Case Study Series. New York, NY. UNION OF FARMER AND INDIGENOUS ORGANIZATIONS OF COTACACHI (UNORCAC) Ecuador PROJECT SUMMARY KEY FACTS The remote communities of Ecuador’s inter-Andean valleys have long faced the twin challenges of food insecurity EQUATOR PRIZE WINNER: 2008 and environmental degradation. Malnutrition affects approximately 40 per cent of the region’s population, FOUNDED: 2002 and farmers receive limited technological and economic support from formal institutions. The Union of Farmer and LOCATION: Inter-Andean valleys of northern Ecuador Indigenous Organizations of Cotacachi was founded to address these challenges and turn the relative abundance BENEFICIARIES: 3,225 families of rare native crop and fruit species to the advantage of farming communities. BIODIVERSITY: Agricultural biodiversity By conserving of a wide variety of native, tuber, root, fruit, cereal and medicinal plant species, the initiative has improved diversity of income and nutrition sources for 3,225 farming families. In addition the initiative has developed value-added processing of local varieties, and ‘agro-tourism’. TABLE OF CONTENTS Background and Context 4 Key Activities and Innovations 6 Biodiversity Impacts 8 Socioeconomic Impacts 9 Policy Impacts 10 Partners 11 3 Background and Context The Union of Farmer and Indigenous Organizations of Cotacachi have received limited technological and economic support from (Unión de Organizaciones Campesinas e Indígenas de Cotacachi - formal institutions, with these efforts proving insufficient both in UNORCAC) brings together local producers, agricultural researchers, terms of improving agricultural productivity and in meeting the and national and international development agencies to promote demands of local and foreign markets. sustainable rural development in the inter-Andean valleys of Ecuador. The organisation has encouraged the conservation and sustainable Crop diversity and local livelihoods in Cotacachi use of genetic plant resources through the reintroduction and preservation of native crop varieties. Farmers living in the foothills of the Cotacachi Volcano have made their living for centuries by cultivating small plots of land with a Agricultural biodiversity (or agro-biodiversity) is a fundamental diverse assortment of native crops, many of which are little-known component of food security for the world’s poorest rural communities outside the Andes. The Cotacachi communities are located within and plays a key role in making farming systems more stable, resilient, one of the world’s primary centers of crop domestication. Crops and sustainable. Agricultural biodiversity includes all cultivated grown here include numerous local maize varieties; Andean roots and crop species and their related wild species, as well as species of tubers such as oca, mashua, melloco, and arracacha; pseudo-cereals domesticated animals, insects and other pollinators, and strains of such as quinoa and amaranth; tropical fruits such as tree tomatoes, microorganisms that are used either directly or indirectly for food ground cherries, passion fruits, highland papayas and giant Andean and agriculture. It also encompasses the full range of associated blackberries; native grain legumes including lupines, lima beans, ecosystems in which agriculture takes place, as well as habitats and common beans and scarlet runner beans; highland squashes such species outside of agricultural systems that generate benefits to as the fig-leafed gourd and the slipper gourd; and several varieties agriculture and contribute to the functioning of ecosystems. of hot peppers. Local farmers also maintain ancestral knowledge about the special properties and uses of these crops. After satisfying Environmental decline and food security their family’s own needs, farmers take any surplus produce to local markets; prices are often so low, however, that they do not cover Farming communities in Ecuador have long faced the twin the transportation costs. The low status often associated with native challenges of food insecurity and environmental degradation. foods in urban markets, and environmental changes in recent Food production for subsistence livelihoods and cash income has decades have led to increasing abandonment of these diverse crops, often been prioritized at the expense of biodiversity, water quality, resulting in the overall erosion of agricultural biodiversity. carbon fixation capacity, and land resources in general. Over time, over-exploitation of natural resources has decreased agricultural Poverty reduction through conserving agro-biodiversity productivity, making it more difficult for the rural producers to meet even basic food security needs. These challenges are particularly The Union of Farmer and Indigenous Organizations of Cotacachi severe in the inter-Andean region of Ecuador, which accounts for (UNORCAC) was formed to resolve this dilemma and promotes 24% of the country’s landmass, comprising approximately 67,000 a selection of native crops that are considered forgotten, and km2. The region is densely populated, home to approximately 46% of have received little attention from the scientific and agricultural the national population (4.5 million), and poverty is rife. Malnutrition community. The project is designed to contribute to sustainable affects approximately 40% of the population. Farmers in this region rural development in a pilot area within the farming valleys of 4 the inter-Andean region. UNORCAC’s primary objective is to of projects with a distinctive approach it terms “development with improve living conditions through poverty reduction based on the identity”. The organisation believes that agricultural practices must conservation of agro-biodiversity. incorporate technologies and management processes that ensure an ecologically sound, cost-effective, and equitable distribution Since its inception in 2002, the initiative has reached 3,225 families. of social benefits. By creating new markets for native crop-based Many of these families are from the indigenous Quichua (Kichwa) products and by revitalizing indigenous knowledge and traditions people, common to the Andean regions of Ecuador and Colombia, associated with local agro-biodiversity, the ethnic, cultural and social and numbering approximately 2.5 million. UNORCAC has achieved value of native crops is recognized and reinforced. significant poverty reduction results through the implementation 5 Key Activities and Innovations In response to the ‘genetic erosion”’of underutilized native crop varieties in farming communities in the Andean valleys of northern Ecuador, the UNORCAC initiative was launched in 2002. Over time, the project has increasingly focused on the application of scientific knowledge and techniques, as reflected in the title of the initial project: “Promotion of Andean crops for rural development in Ecuador: Rescue, complementary

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