Trip Report, IPM CRSP travel to Honduras, Aug. 5 – 13, 2006 Sarah Hamilton The purpose of this trip was to prioritize social science research for Honduras, as stated in Workplan Activity 1.6, “IPM in Latin America and the Caribbean: Crops for Broad-based Growth and Perennial Production for Fragile Ecosystems.” All proposed activities, which are listed below, were completed successfully. The success of this visit is due to the considerable efforts of IPM CRSP Honduran colleagues. Mauricio Rivera, FHIA, coordinated the visit, and FHIA colleagues in Comayagua Dennis Ramirez and Renán Marcía arranged the meetings and observation opportunities described below. Mauricio and Renán dedicated a great deal of time, as well as effort, during this visit. They transported me during the week, participated most helpfully during the interviews and meetings, and spent a great deal of time providing background information and materials so that I could better understand what we observed. Enid Cuellar of FHIA in Tegucigalpa located helpful agricultural census and national socio-economic census information and discussed the more macro agricultural economic perspective. Alfredo Rueda at Zamorano and Ernesto Garay at Zamorano also were most helpful, providing needed background information on relevant projects and excellent ideas concerning the proposed work. Specific activities included: • Meeting with IPM CRSP coordinators at FHIA and Zamorano to collect information concerning their priorities for social science work, relevant institutional capabilities, potential consultants for work that is outside their institutional capabilities, and knowledge of potential research sites and constraints. • Conducting initial reconnaissance of the Comayagua Valley, where horticultural production (other than melon) for export is concentrated and where it was anticipated that social science research would take place. Reconnaissance activities were conducted during two full days in the Valley and included: o Meeting with the Valley’s three irrigation district officials and their staffs. These officials made available highly relevant information on farm sizes, production, and water use for all users in their systems. They also introduced us to farmers and helped us arrange farm visits and to observe the system of water delivery. o Meeting with farmers from five regions in the valley and observing farming operations in four areas. o Interviewing an oriental vegetable producer organization president and exporter and observing methods used for tracing SPS practices, packing operations o Interviewing a packing house manager at a second export operation o Checking out costs and quality of temporary housing and food for potential research team activities in the region • Collecting relevant archival data
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Interviewing potential consultants who could provide services for a socioeconomic survey of some 150-300 households Meeting with USAID officials to provide information on proposed social science work on the IPM CRSP in Honduras and to ask for information concerning potential synergies with other USAID-funded work in Honduras. Identifying a population of farmers and their communities that can be studied to determine economic, social, and environmental impacts of the IPM CRSP in Honduras.
Summary of relevant findings: Determining the population from which to select households for impact assessment was the most challenging of the tasks during this trip. Neither of our partner organizations in Honduras is working with farmers in the Comayagua Valley. However, Mauricio, Alfredo, and Peter Hearne and Leyla Gaytan of USAID had very helpful suggestions for either re-thinking where we should do the research or partnering with a third entity, FINTRAC, a company that is executing USAID-supported agricultural development and IPM work in Comayagua and elsewhere in Honduras. Both FHIA and Zamorano work with FINTRAC, whose offices are located on FHIA’s La Lima campus. After returning to the U.S., I was able to talk with Andy Medlicott, director of the USAID-supported FINTRAC program in Honduras, who agreed to work with the IPM CRSP socioeconomic research team in Comayagua or elsewhere in Honduras. Thus there are decisions to be made concerning trade-offs related to doing the research in Comayagua (where oriental vegetables for export and other prioritized horticultural crops are produced), La Esperanza (where IPM CRSP also has an interest in potato), or other locations in Honduras. As a research organization, FHIA does not work directly with more than a very few farmers in the Comayagua Valley, and none could be considered small-scale producers. Alfredo is leading relevant work on the PROIMPAC project, on which Zamorano works with NGOs to engage farmers in participatory IPM. On this project, evaluation protocols link IPM indicators to poverty reduction, gender equity, and environmental sustainability indicators. Alfredo indicated that there could be positive potential for IPM CRSP to work with this project, as basic grain farmers in their client populations are now growing vegetables, IPM is an integral part of the project, and socio-economic research of the kind proposed for the IPM CRSP could be helpful to the project. PROIMPAC is working in La Esperanza. Regarding socio-economic research in the Comayagua Valley, a prominent issue discussed by FHIA and Zamorano colleagues was whether there are small-scale producers of relevant crops, if we want to focus on vegetables and fruits produced for export. At USAID, Leyla Gaytan stressed that other regions are poorer, and thus Comayagua might not be the best region for looking at the impact of IPM on poverty. Given the findings of the initial reconnaissance activities in the valley during this trip, I think that the Valley does offer a laboratory for investigating the impact of IPM on poverty, through both production and employment effects on household economies. But
I think that we may want to also investigate IPM impacts in La Esperanza or in Marcala, a coffee-growing region where small-scale producers are diversifying into vegetable production according to Mauricio. On my next reconnaissance trip, I will visit La Esperanza and Marcala. Details of the initial reconnaissance in the Comayagua Valley follow. The reconnaissance activities in the Comayagua Valley demonstrated that there are fruit and vegetable growers whose operations range from a very few hectares to several hundred hectares in size. Although it was not a primary growing or harvest season for most of the fruits and vegetables destined for export and domestic markets, we were able to observe production of export oriental vegetables by medium-scale (around 5-15 has.) producers in San Jerónimo and to obtain documentary evidence of production for domestic markets by small-scale growers. In the Flores irrigation district, for example, rice dominated irrigated production during the month of June (55 producers, 429 ha. under irrigation), followed by maize (60 producers, 125 irrigated has.) and sorghum (40 growers, 66 irrigated has.). However, even in this season, during the month of June, 172 farmers produced irrigated fruit and vegetable crops on plots as small as 1/3 hectare. Around 20 percent of these farmers are women. The initially proposed socio-economic research for Honduras focuses not only on sustainable production and international and national market access for crops, but also on the contribution of IPM CRSP crops’ production and processing to sustainable livelihoods and poverty reduction. Employment in the nontraditional horticultural export sector and domestic horticultural sector is hypothesized to be a component of poverty reduction, especially since a large proportion of the work force is expected to be female. Such employment is directly related to IPM in both economic and non-economic terms. Production of IPM technologies can be developed on a scale that provides considerable employment (especially for women), as has been the case with grafting in Honduras (observed during 2003 in Choluteca). The use of chemical pesticides in greenhouse and field has been demonstrated to endanger the health of employees under certain conditions that could be hypothesized to exist in some of the operations in Honduras. We did not speak with employees about the terms of their employment, but were able to verify visually that a large packing/processing sector is extant and appears to be increasing in size in the Valley. Even during this season, a plant we visited was packing/processing some produce and employing women. There is considerable potential for further research to determine the size of the workforce, its gendered composition, and the terms of employment for varying tasks and categories of workers. This information can be linked to the livelihood profiles of surveyed households if at least some of those households come from communities in which workers live. These communities are located both in the valley and from adjacent hillside areas.