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PROYECTOS EN BUSCA DE FINANCIAMIENTO
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In recent years, farmers in this area have been unable to compete with mainstream wheat producers for several reasons.
1. International donations of wheat flour to poor third world countries have created an adverse effect on the supply and demand of wheat in local markets. Hence, farmers are unable to charge the same prices and sell the same amounts because the wheat markets are inundated with an oversupply of low-priced wheat. The local mills have shut down because large scale wheat production has dropped significantly.
2. The land plots are too small for the farmers to reach an economy of scale. Therefore, it costs more per unit for the small scale farmers to produce their small amounts of wheat than for the larger producers.
3. Lack of tools and technology to compete with modern wheat producers.
4. The urgent need of income makes the producers sell their produce when the price is lower during harvest season.
Because they cannot reach the market with good prices, young people are unable to remain with their families. And adopt survival strategies that force them to seek employment and living elsewhere. Over the past 10 years, 30% of the population in these communities between the ages of 15-35 years have immigrated to bigger cities, or abroad (Spain, Italy, Argentina).
Other adverse effects have been observed in the balance of production vs. consumption within the family. The families must not only sell the wheat for income, but also use the wheat to feed their families during the winter. Because of the oversupply of wheat in the marketplace, the farmers are changing the production of wheat to other less nutritious products that sell at lower prices and cannot be stored.
The fall of the production of wheat also dropped the internal capacity of generating food for ovine, cattle, breaking in that way the natural productive chain between agricultural activities, animals breeding activities and transformation activities. As a result, the whole family strategy is affected. The farmers are unable to feed or to maintain their herds at sufficient nutritional levels and are unable to provide sufficient medical care to the animals. Sheep are smaller and weaker as time goes by, and therefore they produce less meat for food and less wool for the weaving process, the textile production capacity has become weak.
As a result, even if the logic of production in farmers families is based on productive chains, (for the high level of connection between agricultural, animals breeding, and transformations activities), the present difficulties do not allow the increase of the families incomes and the development of food strategies with high levels of nutrition.
The project " Income generating, peasants family strengthen and nutritional enhancement", has the objective of fortifying the productive strategies of the families of Chimboata by means of reinforcing the productive chain of wheat farming, the sheep breeding activities and the transformation of products such as flour and wool in order to promote again textile activity.
As a consequence, the project intends to create sustainable productive conditions in the zone, preserving the local knowledge for handling the own wheat varieties of the ecological floor. Additionally, the project aims to restore the practices of grinding in traditional stone mills. These traditional stone mills allow the production of whole meal flours with clean energies. At the same time, the stone mills improve the conditions of sheep breeding, because they are feed with the bagase left from the wheat plant, obtaining a better breed and making possible to restore the tradition of ready-made clothiers of textiles of the zone.
The project named “El Taipy” Income generating, peasants family strengthen and nutritional enhancement ” is located in a small community named Chimboata, about 160km from the city of Cochabamba. This community is situated in the 3rd section of the municipality of Pocona, Carrasco province, in the state of Cochabamba.
The community is situated by the road that links the communities of Pocona, Yuraq Molino and Inca Cruce. It is situated over 2600 meters above sea level.
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Chimboata 
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