The project 2013
In 2013 AYEM renewed its partnership with the NGO AVSF (Agronomes et Vétérinaires Sans Frontières). The Alpaca project of AVSF aimed to study the feasibility of organic certifications and fair trade for alpacas breeding in the Bolivian altiplano.
AVSF, settled in Bolivia since 1980, carries out support actions for farmers' organizations and for indigenous of the Altiplano from highlands and lowlands. Their main purpose is to improve the economical situation of more than 500 farmers' families from North Bolivia and South Peru by promoting the alpacas breeding and the commercialisation of its products. For this to happen AVSF, in partnership with the livestock farmers, plans to make a bill of specifications of the certification criterions. In the end this would enable livestock farmers to produce organic wool and clothes for fair trade. This would also improve the creation of added value on those products and the incomes of the families.
The alpaca wool only represents 3% of the world production of fiber, with other thin fibers like cashmere, mohair and angora. Whereas sheep's whool represents alone 97 % of the world production of animal fiber.
The mission
Their mission was based on two points in the Cochabamba and Antaquilla regions in Bolivia. There were an economical part and a technical part with a diagnosis :
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A market study on alpaca whool in Bolivia and Europe. The purpose of this study was to determine the potential markets that could be concerned by the products from certified breeding farm. This was the economical section of the study.
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An inventory of the contemporary and ancestral breeding farm practices. Thanks to this diagnosis they could identify the practices that meet the criterions of organic certifications and fair trade. They particularly looked into ethno-veterinary techniques for health is the pillar of animal production that impacts the most the environment (infections, medecine...).
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A feedback to livestock farmers. The team showed its conclusions to the recipients of the project. This was a demand from the sponsor that wanted to involve the local populations in the project. They wanted to do this using a participative method.
Those studies enabled AVSF to estimate the economical, ecological and social interest of the certification of alpaca breeding.
More information about the project 2014
The Alpaca project of AVSf
Organic certifications and fair trade increase matches with the growing demand from consumers of developed countries. They are more and more aware of the environmental stakes relaed to breeding farm.