Order & donate via

Support our projects in Ecuador

Background - On the island of Nias, 32.2% (BPS 2004) of the inhabitants live below the national poverty line, making Nias one of the poorest areas in Indonesia. This situation was further worsened by both the 2004 tsunami and the 2005 earthquake. Most of this support has been focused on the coastal regions thus largely neglecting the mountainous hinterland which was greatly affected by the earthquake, but not widely publicized like the areas affected by the Tsunami. The main cash crops grown by Nias’ farmers are rubber, coconut and cocoa. Growth and development of cocoa however, was not started by a systematic and comprehensive cultivation - resulting in substandard cultivation patterns and low productivity.

The project - The goal of NISA is to improve the livelihood of farm households in the mountainous hinterland in the sub district of Gomo in South Nias. By project end in 2011 it is expected that 1,500 households in five villages will have improved their livelihood assets.
Through the diversification and intensification of horticultural home gardens, NISA improves food security, as well as nutritional balance. The surplus sale of horticultural products generates additional income for several households.
NISA aims at strengthening the self-help capacity by cooperating with the communities in order to outline a future development agenda. Communities in general and newly formed farmer groups in specific receive training in financial literacy, leadership, and motivation.
To enable them to sell the additional cocoa at a fair price, Swisscontact is facilitating the producers’ access to market and pricing information. This reduces their dependence on local buyers, who all too often exploit the fact that the farmers do not actually know the market prices of their own produce.
The project can be divided into three main divisions: cocoa, horticulture, as well as community development. Each sector includes several interventions.
In order to increase productivity, NISA provides training through Farmer Field Schools (FFS) for four months where farmers gain know-how and competence in terms of good farm practices. In a second step, NISA concentrates on the enhancement of cocoa quality by training farmers on post harvest handling such as fermentation, sorting and improved drying techniques. In farmer field schools, the capacity of female farmers is strengthened in terms of land preparation, vegetable garden cultivation as well as seeds preservation. In addition, awareness is increased regarding the significance of balanced nutrition on parent as well as on pupil level. The development of an “Atlas” containing information regarding natural resources, as well as social and physical infrastructure helps villagers to formulate a development agenda. Here, women and men separately agree on community priorities of which the top priorities are envisaged to be facilitated as ‘self help initiatives’.

Farmer Field school student Ama Elfin Tafõna’õ (29):
“I am very impressed with the skills gained in the farmer field school, as I learnt what are the causes of all those diseases my cocoa suffers. Further, I learnt on how to prevent those diseases in the future. With the old farming model, the harvest was never satisfying. Through the training we gained plenty of necessary know-how which we now apply in our own cocoa gardens”