04637naa a2200157 a 450000100080000000500110000800800410001910000160006024502310007626000090030752040290031670000170434570000130436270000160437577300880439116520182004-04-24       1998    bl uuuu     u00u1 u    #d1 aINTRIAGO, S  aOld partners face a new challengeban integrated plan, including biotech-supported activities, to help restore food security and development progress in a cassava dependent area after the El Niño disaster in Manabí, Equador.  c1998  aAbstract: In this normally dry area of Manabi, coastal Equador, rainfall was 400¨% of normal for two years during the El Niño phenomenon. No crops were harvested in 1997. What little was planted in 1998 was largely lost to landslides, floods, and root rots, including essentially 100% of the traditional cassava food varieties and 70% of the introduced processing variety. The natural disaster destroyed the food supply, carried away homes and bridges, buried roads, eliminated sources of employment and income in coffee and cocoa harvesting (of the 150,000 hectares of cacao, only 50,000 hectares remain) and cassava processing, and cost the region its agricultural markets. Families are selling assets, such as livestock, to buy food imported from outside the area. Men are leaving the region in search of work. INEC, the national census institute, estimates an influx of 100,000 persons into Guayaquil, many working as street vendors. Others have gone to large banana plantations up the coast. Farmers expect subsistencia agriculture to recover gradually over several years, but they expect social deterioration will continue because employment will recover slowly and only partially. The lack of any remaining local resources to restart the supply of raw material (cassava roots), repair infrastructure, and restore markets are na insuperable obstacle to self-recovery of income and jobs based on cassava processing. Antecedents of cooperation: Processing: During 1985-95, a CIAT integrated farm-to-market project fostered the establishment of farmers' cooperatives in Manabi. The cooperatives and CIAT devised a simple processing technology to produce high-quality cassava flour and starch, and developed markets. This project ultimately fosfered 18 cooperatives. The effect of the cooperatives has been large than the scale of the project because of the employment they provide for unskilled rural laborers, and the market for surplus cassava production (something that previously did not exist) provided for non-members throughout the area around Portoviejo. Local organization: The cooperatives have been sustainable, retaining their identity and a confidence in their understanding of what needs to be done, despite the end of the project and a climatic disaster. The exemple of particiopatory technology development from this project has since been copied in other projects in Equador, as national program persons once associated with the project have been transferred or moved to NGOs. Germplasm: In the 1980's, the  national program INIAP selected a CIAT introduction which became the standard processing variety for the cooperatives. In 1993-96, INIAP and farmers selectede a second variety, also from CIAT material, which may be superior. When el Niño rains stopped all agricultura activity, the dissemination of this variety was halted, and the national cassava collection was destroyed. The plan for disaster relief: Goal: Use restored and rescued local cassava germplasm and elite introducted genetic diversity in an integrated project, funded by USAID Office of Disaster Assistance, to restart the local chain of food security and rural employment. Objectives: 1. Jump-start production by multiplying and distributing popular cassava varieties; 2. Secure the genetic base for cassava in local agriculture, by repatriating from CIAT the lost Ecuadoran materials to the INIAP research station in Manabi and to the national in-vitro colletion in Quito; collecting and documenting (including molecular fingerprints) other local materials where they may  yet exist in isolated pockets and conserving them in situ and in-vitro; and establishing and using a famers' gene bank of local and elite materials; 3. Repair and start-up cassava processing plants and introduce new concepts of small-scale agribusiness, to re-open opportunities for cash income, jobs, and markets for production among the poorest farmers of the region. Partners will include UATAPPY, the Technical University of Manabi, INIAP, and CIAT.1 aCABALLERO, H1 aPOATS, S1 aTHRO, A. M.  tRevista Brasileira de Mandioca, Cruz das Almasgv.17, p.80, nov., 1998. Suplemento.