Collective action for innovation and small farmer market access: the Papa Andina experience

The Andean highlands are home to some of the poorest rural households in South America. Native potato varieties and local knowledge for their cultivation and use are unique resources possessed by farmers in these areas. This paper reports on how the Papa Andina Regional Initiative is promoting the use of collective action to reduce poverty in the Andes, by developing market niches and adding value to potatoes, particularly the native potatoes grown by poor farmers.

Since 1998, Papa Andina has worked with partners in Bolivia, Ecuador and Peru to stimulate pro-poor innovation within market chains for potato-based products. The paper describes how market chain actors (including small-scale potato producers, traders, and processors), researchers, and other service providers have engaged in innovation processes via two principal tools for facilitating collective action:

* the Participatory Market Chain Approach (PMCA), which fosters commercial, technological, and institutional innovation through a structured process that builds interest, trust, and collaboration among participants
* Stakeholder Platforms, which provide a space for potato producers, other market chain actors, and service providers to come together to identify their common interests, share knowledge, and develop joint activities.

The authors find that the PMCA and Stakeholder Platforms in Bolivia, Ecuador, and Peru have:

* empowered Andean potato farmers by expanding their knowledge of markets, market agents, and business opportunities
* built social networks built up among producers, market agents, and service providers, which has stimulated commercial innovation, followed by technical and institutional innovation
* allowed small farmers to market their potatoes on more favorable terms and other market chain actors to increase their incomes.

Based on these experiences, a number of lessons are formulated for using collective action to stimulate innovation, market access, and poverty reduction in other settings.