Farmers in Peru Share Organic Farming Expertise via Internet

Freddy is an organic sweet potato farmer of the community San Lucas de Colán in the region of Piura, Peru. He learned how to create organic compost and other organic farming methods, that he now uses for all of his crops. With the help of Heifer Peru and IICD, the experiences of Freddy and other farmers will now be shared via multimedia and other ICT.

It started with a training project for farmers of the drylands of Piura where, with the help of the Heifer foundation and through local partner Coordinadora Rural, farmer Freddy learned how to improve his farming practices to better grow sweet potato and other crops.

During a two day workshop in Peru organised by IICD and Heifer Peru, that aimed to show the practical usage of ICT for rural development organisations, the case of Freddy and some others were presented. Heifer indicated that even though the project they support is a success on a small scale, the challenge is to disseminate information about organic production and the experiences of Freddy and other farmers in Piura to farmers in other areas.

IICD and Heifer signed an agreement with the aim to help implementing ICT solutions to inform farmers. At the two day workshop, participants presented other Peruvian organic (‘agroecological’) farming projects that IICD will assist. These projects would (for example) like to more easily share information about sustainable and productive community-based natural resource management, (organic) sheep and goat farming and how to sell Alpaca products on the Peruvian market.

To see a photo presentation about farmer Freddy and his experiences with organic farming, see our flickr page