Andean Alliance for Sustainable Development
Business training (agricultural) for highland farmers
Location: Peru
Sponsor: Jorian Wilkins
The Andean Alliance for Sustainable Development: Grantee in 2020, 2021 and 2022-23
The Andean Alliance for Sustainable Development was founded in 2010 to support agricultural projects that help farming communities high in the Andes Mountains. In this part of Peru, the climate and geography make it challenging to cultivate crops and get them to market effectively. AASD helps these marginalized farmers using a sustainable social enterprise model that makes programs accountable to the communities in which they are implemented. Believing that the best way to support change is to support impactful change-makers in the community, AASD works closely with these community leaders to develop trust. AASD also conducts revenue-generating experiential learning programs for university students and tourism providers.
Beginning in 2020, the AASD is partnering with the Ecohuella Demonstration Farm to develop the Campesino Agribusiness Accelerator (CAA). The accelerator program consists of three key development phases: agroecology, business skill training, and networking and marketing. Over five years, the program will provide 150 entrepreneurs in the Cusco (Andean) region of Peru with classroom instruction and hands-on training about business development, how to access markets, and guidance on agroecological production, especially as it relates to entering high-value organic markets. With additional on-farm capacity building and monitoring at regular intervals, increases are expected in farmers’ abilities to market and sell products to high-value consumers in the Cusco region.
In 2023, AASD is expanding into a new geographic area with the Lacco Valley Initiative in the highlands of Peru devastated by coffee disease and suffering from extreme poverty.
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GRANT SUMMARY AND PURPOSE
2020: A $30,000 grant supported the launch of this accelerator program with a pilot cohort of 25 high-potential entrepreneurs. Participating farmers will be selected because they have experienced systemic and historical marginalization. Their geographic isolation further exacerbated their challenges and resulted in poverty levels far above the national average.
2021: A $30,000 grant supported 60 additional campesino farmers in the very isolated Mapacho River Valley in the Calca Province of Cusco, Peru, in solving two critical problems: poor crop yields due to yellow leaf rust and lack of access to markets that will pay premiums for their specialized high mountain coffee. Lessons learned from the 2020 pilot program have improved the agricultural and business concepts training and commercialization guidance for the farmers. Enduring benefits will result for the trained farmers and their neighbors who will learn from their model.
2022-2023: A $30,000 grant will fund the Lacco Valley Initiative in an area impoverished by coffee disease. The Initiative will support training, farming equipment and materials for 60 farm households with the goal of doubling coffee production and increasing the quality of coffee. In addition, a grant of $2,883 in unrestricted funding has been awarded to support this mission.
IMPACT
Help participants develop needed skills to build and expand viable, resilient businesses capable of sustained independence. Over the next five years, as the accelerator program rolls out, it will directly lift 150+ farmers out of poverty. Indirectly, the program will benefit over 1,000 family members as well.
