An approach for poverty alleviation in Andean rural areas by linking small scale farmers to new urban markets taking advantage of potato biodiversity and tap new market opportunities is presented in this article. Participatory Market Chain Approach (PMCA) was used to develop Tikapapa as a marketing concept to access new market, but also has demonstrated potential to mobilize capacities of stakeholders to start innovation and promote collaborative partnerships. The prices received by small farmers selling their native potatoes to supermarket, as T?ikapapa were 30% higher than those of potatoes sold through traditional market channels during the 2005 pilot action. This paper describes the experience in Peru of Tikapapa, a brand name and a marketing concept to link small scale farmers from Andean highlands to supermarkets to take advantage of potato biodiversity and tap new market opportunities. The paper closes emphasizing relevant impacts of this intervention.
The Andean region is one of the most diverse areas in the world and the home of a vast collection of biodiversity for a number of food crops such as potato, maize, bean, tomato, etc. The Andes is a mosaic of ecosystems with distinctive conditions, such as elevation (800 to 4500 masl), rainfall, geology, and the distribution of particular plant and animal species. These diverse agro-ecosystems have allowed only in Peru the development of the widest collection of potato biodiversity that is estimated in more than 3000 native landraces. In a single valley in the Peruvian Andes, peasant communities may grow between 70 and 100 distinct potato varieties and a typical Andean household may keep up to 50 distinct varieties, including tubers from several potato species. Therefore, native potatoes are a unique asset and a comparative advantage of Andean farmers, since harsh climatic conditions of the high Andean altitudes are the limiting factor to grow other crops.
