SMALL FARMER ORGANIZATIONS (7/8/77-7/26/77)

Proj purpose is to provide credit & tech assist to Bolivia"s Small farmer (SF)"s. On-site observatns were made at 3 regional & 4 zonal offices & interviews conducted with Natn"l Community Devel Service (SNDC) employees. Although some progress has been made many probs must be solved. One of the major reasons so few SF"s have been able to repay loans results from poor socio-economic & historical studies. Coops chosen for program participatn were not the best since studies did not provide info about organizational activities, member involvemt, and historical data on basic line of productn in the community over the past 5-10 yrs. An attempt is made to evaluate proj according to productn credit & admin aspects. During interview, techs were extremely cooperative, open, and willing to discuss how probs could be solved. Unfortunately techs did not keep logs, making it difficult to determine the time they devoted to each of their responsibilities & those in the Tarija zone were not developing feasibility studies for the next agr cycle. Often techs did not visit or assist SF"s often enough due to transportatn probs. Technical backstopping from regional offices was minimal & funding inadequate in many cases to admin the proj. Unusually heavy rain in some areas & drought in others also resulted in poor agr yields. Rice crops in the Santa Cruz zone & wheat in the Tarija zone were encouraged when past productn had been unsuccessful. In most cases techs have not asstd SF"s make transitns to more productive agr activities which has resulted in failure for SF"s to break even &/or repay loans. Techs are concerned about the lack of improvemt in coop organizatn & have complained they lack per diem to travel enough to give support. Communicatn, frequent admin changes & slow response times from La Paz are also probs. The Cochabamba region, due to a new potato seed & the building of a lg dam & irrigatn sys, has had the most success. Evaluator feels projs such as Cochabamba should be undertaken to assure adequate water for crop success, etc before loans are made.