# Box 3: PROINDER’s principal achievements in terms of improving living and productive conditions for beneficiaries of the PROINDER programs

Direct financing to beneficiaries through the _Programa Social Agropecuario’s_ Rural Initiatives Support Fund (FAIR) took place from 2000 to May 2005, in 5,861 subprojects involving 40,843 families of small farmers and agricultural migrant workers in 21 provinces. An evaluation carried out in 2002 based on a sampling of these subprojects, a year and a half after their start-up, showed the following results:

- **_Evolution of the social and organizational level of groups:_** the organizational level of 39% of the groups has increased. They have progressed from being groups with no prior organization, to stages with an early level of organization, and to a lesser extent a consolidated organization, which provides them with greater management capacity to advance their interests in political and commercial arenas.

- **_Joint purchase of goods or joint sale of products:_** the number of groups that purchased and/or sold jointly increased by 36%. Joint purchases of goods, even among different groups of producers, resulted in a lowering of the costs foreseen in the original design of the subprojects, which also permitted an increase in goods purchased and/or in improvements made.

• **_Investments in productive infrastructure:_** stemming from investments financed through different types of subprojects, the productive infrastructure owned by groups increased by 22%, reaching as high as 39% in some provinces. Taking into account the limited on-farm investments at the start-up of each subproject, the investments in productive infrastructure are considered to have enabled significant increases in productivity such as those listed below:

- **_Number of products for on-farm consumption:_** the number of products increased by 46%. This indicator relates directly to the existence of improvements in the quality of life at the family level, since it allows the diet to be diversified and increases on-farm “non-monetary income” (valuing of on-farm consumption).

- **_Equivalent amount of production for on-farm consumption:_** the increase in the value of production for on-farm consumption totaled 34%.

- **_Number of products for sale:_** the number of products and/or by-products for sale increased by 32%, which clearly indicates an increase in productive diversification.

- **_Income from sales:_** with regard to the amount of income obtained from marketed products, a positive trend is observed throughout the entire country, totaling 11%. However, this result stems from a high level of interprovincial variability, linked to various reasons: (i) provinces where products slated for market were few and are increasing; consequently the increased amount obtained from sales expands; (ii) provinces in which commercial products predominate but face a crisis in prices and where it has been difficult to sustain income from sales even though additional products have been incorporated into the livelihood strategy. Despite these results, producers state that, without the subproject, their situation would be one of a serious deterioration of their income level.

Another significant contribution to the improvement in productivity was PROINDER’s subcomponent of Research in Appropriate Technologies for Small Farmers, which carried out 33 adaptive research studies between 2001 and 2004. An analysis of the research results, using four basic indicators (increase in income, productivity and/or quality of production, savings in labor and/or inputs, and improvement in the sustainable use of natural resources) shows the following results:

- 70% of projects produced some improvement in a given indicator.

- 45% of projects showed simultaneous improvements in more than one indicator.

- 44% of projects showed increases in income.

- In 60% of projects, productivity and/or quality of production increased.

- 28% produced some type of savings (labor and/or inputs).

- 35% increased the sustainability of natural resource use.

_<u>Source</u>_ : Aparicio and Tapella (2002) 43