Integration of Internal Control System and GIS for Quinua Production - Bolivia

The IICD-FAUTAPO project addresses GIS mapping of quinua production in the southern altiplano of Bolivia. The project focuses on the use of GPS and input of georeferenced data and other socio-economic data, which have been collected in the field, into the recently created FAUTAPO data base, in conjunction with training of technicians in GPS mapping and data base maintenance. The data base currently holds producers’ data of 1,200 members of the quinua growers’ associations ANAPQUI & CECAOT, and also of commercial producers.
In the course of the project, data capturing in the field using hand-held devices is being tested. The challenge in this process is the conversion of data on the PDAs into a format which is compatible with the central data base.
Maps of the region for GIS applications can be obtained fairly easily, but some of these may lack in accuracy required to show the quinua plots which are often very small (80x80 metres). This means some amount of extrapolation will have to be done.
The project has a pilot orientation. The farmers of the ANAPQUI and CECAOT associations farm 37,000 hectares in all. In this phase, no planning has occurred yet on how to map this surface and collect all farmers’ socio-economic data.

Maps of the region for GIS applications can be obtained fairly easily, but some of these may lack in accuracy required to show the quinua plots which are often very small (80x80 metres). This means some amount of extrapolation will have to be done. More accurate maps are, in many cases, useless for essential data, e.g. meteorological data, are missing.

The FAUTAPO project on GIS mapping of organic quinua production in the southern altiplano has started in Q3 of 2009. The project focuses on GPS mapping and input of these data into the recently created FAUTAPO ‘Control Interno’ data base, in conjunction with training of technicians in GPS mapping and data base maintenance. Final goal is the certification of organic quinua.

Acquisition of the necessary hardware for data capturing in the field has been completed. Also, capacity development of FAUTAPO technicians in the use of PDAs and in the use of the ‘Control Interno’ database has been completed.

The introduction of PDAs and the software programme Cybertracker for capturing GPS and socio-economic data in the field, has undergone a delay but is now complete. The main issue is now to synchronise the captured GPS data to the central database.

Surprisingly (nothing had been communicated about this by FAUTAPO) FAUTAPO has built a new, separate, GIS application, in which the often irregular plots are georefenced with a large number of points, as opposed to the one central point used in the ‘Control Interno’ database. This is an unfortunate decision: it would have been much easier to incorporate the GIS application directly into the Control Interno database. Now the challenge is how to link up the two databases, a fact FAUTAPO had not even considered until present.

Data collection during the current production cycle has been completed, but has covered only 5,000 hectares, corresponding with some 1,200 farmers. Data collection is done after the quinua harvest and is mostly done in June-July-August. Target is 200 hectares/technician/month to be sampled at least. This corresponds to 12-40 families/month, each family having 5-12 hectares. Only 1 form has to be filled out, reduced from the original 3, thus reducing work involved. For the campaign there are 12 technicians available, 10 of ANAPQUI and 2 of CECAOT. These can survey at least 7,200 hectares/month. Given the fact that ANAPQUI has 33,000 hectares, and CECAOT 4,000, surveying on an annual basis, required for certification of organic quinua, is not feasible. It is unclear how this issue, including, ideally annual, updating of the data is to be solved in future. FAUTAPO wants to involve producers themselves in capturing GPS data of their plots but this still leaves the issue of gathering and updating socio-economic data.

It appears that FAUTAPO has made life very difficult both for itself and in terms of the ultimate success of the project. The decision to create two data bases, in combination with a lack of manpower to perform the necessary data capturing in the field, has the danger of a project remaining stuck in an overly high ambition level in combination with a serious lack of planning capacity.

• To develop a GIS connecting to the existing data base holding socio-economic information about quinua smallholder producers to allow for analysis and monitoring of quinua production data in the southern Altiplano of Bolivia.

• Technicians of ANAPQUI and CECAOT have been trained in the use of GPSs.

• Data are currently being collected and uploaded to the FAUTAPO central GIS database.

Read more about IICD's Bolivia Country Programme

No FGM and M&E have taken place yet. First M&E results are expected in the course of 2010.

The FAUTAPO foundation supports quinua production in the southern Altiplano of Bolivia, in particular to smallholders producing organic quinua. One of the main objectives of this programme is the development of an information system to support the internal control system of the National Association of Quinua Producers ANAPQUI, with 1200 producers of the Oruro and Potosí departments and of the CECAOT association with 230 smallholder producers in Potosí. Through this system certification of organic quinua is expected to improve and become faster.