How can a small farm entrepreneur innovate?

by Adah Chan

We drove six hours west of Recife into the state of Penambuco to the town of Afogados da Ingazeira, where we met local staff of Diaconia, an NGO that works with small family farmers engaged in agroecological farming. Our group of 12 then broke up into teams of 3 and headed out to spend a day and a night with family farms in the region.

Aaron, Ernesto and I stayed with Baltazar, his wife Josefa, and three of their nine children (the other children are grown and live nearby or in Rio).  Since the focus of our study tour was innovation and entrepreneurship, I began to think about Baltazar in this light almost immediately after meeting him.  The typical entrepreneur who comes to speak with us at MIT Sloan works at a tech start-up in Cambridge.  Could Baltazar, a farmer in a remote region of northeast Brazil, also be considered an innovator and entrepreneur? 

Baltazar lives on the same land where he grew up in a subsistence farming family. Baltazar’s first step as an entrepreneur was his decision to switch to agroecological farming in 2001. Agroecological farming takes an "ecological approach to agriculture, respecting the earth's natural cycles, using chemical-free, organic techniques, and farming with respect to indigenous practices, local technologies, and modern or innovative techniques". Baltazar confessed that the most challenging aspect of abandoning conventional farming was ‘leaving behind pesticides and believing that agroecological farming works’. It was a considerable investment for Baltazar, given that his farm needed to support 9 children in a semi-arid region of Brazil.

Since the switch, Baltazar has implemented many new technologies and farming methods. He installed two cisterns, which he uses to store water for livestock. He also has a well that supplies a drip-irrigation system for his 50 guava and pinha trees. Two years ago, Baltazar started to grow organic cotton. This year, Baltazar and his neighbour applied for a beehive project and received a R3000 grant from the Ministry of Agriculture to purchase equipment for 8 boxes to keep bees, which yield 7 litres of honey each. He is harvesting honey for the first time this week! Recently, a nearby farmer friend installed the first bio digester in the region and Baltazar hopes that he too will soon be able to install a bio digester to turn his cow dung into methane for fuel.

 
Photo: Baltazar's well (5m deep) for irrigation

Photo: Baltazar and me - by his cistern  

Baltazar is not just a farmer: he is a bee keeper, owns 60 animals, makes cheese with his milk, grows organic cotton, harvests tropical fruit produce, and to top it off he was one of the first farmers to sell door-to-door to his customers.

In all these ways, Baltazar is certainly an entrepreneur. He is open to new ideas and never hesitates to experiment. He took up project after project not only to increase income – he now sells half of his produce to market - but also to fuel his interests with experimentation, risk-taking and ownership.

Entrepreneurial spirit is abundant in the agroecological farming communities we visited. These small farmers took on a new way of farming, not, as one would perhaps assume for survival, but to carve out new market opportunities. The farmers collectively sell their produce at the local farm fair twice a week and brand their goods ‘agroecological’.

I am still left wondering about the role of innovation in this community. The strategies - irrigation, bio processing, and market linkages - that makes entrepreneurship possible comes solely from Diaconia, which works with the farmers on implementation and training. Innovation starts and fuels entrepreneurship but how can it be sustained and scaled if (1) the farmers depends heavily on innovation from an external source (Diaconia) and (2) the farmers do not have the means or the capacity to come up with new innovation? 

Photos: Agroecological Farmers (in green uniforms) selling their produce at the local market  

Comments

[Sula]

Adah, I thoroughly enjoyed reading your post. Coming from the retail and consumer sector I feel the need to purchase organic produce, especially when I know that it's come from a farm in a developing country to encourage sustainable practices.
Your post brought to light the reality of the experiences of these farms and farmers - what kinds of risks they take (very different to organic farms in the West) and your blog bring to light questions of the role of NGOs. Aaron touched on this issue as well - to what extent should the farmers be dependent on NGO assistance? Most of us are under the impression that these initiatives are in fact sustainable. However, taking into consideration external factors like drought and lack of water supply, you bring a lot of complexity to the issue that as (the consumer) I was not aware of.
I'm looking forward to reading more posts from your collective experiences as being personally involved in the food industry in the Middle East, this has informed how I think about the realities of organic farming here!
Thank you

[Erdin Beshimov]

Adah, thank you for this story! I think what you folks at Sloan are doing in the area of development, entrepreneurship, and innovation is fantastic. Keep up the good work!

[Kerrie Lenhart]

Interesting post! Seems like promoting experimentation is not enough-- NGOs should also push for sustainable, self-driven innovation within the communities they are engaged in.