Poverty in Latin America and the Caribbean affects 44% of its inhabitants and it is on the rise. This status-quo, the prevailing unemployment rates and the lack of a political response forces a large share of the population to seek precarious forms of subsistence and income-generation activities. Urban and peri-urban agriculture is one of these mechanisms that has the advantage of receiving support from international programs and, lately, from several local governments.

A key issue for (peri) urban agriculture is to identify the actual and potential role of organizations and cooperatives of urban farmers on urban agriculture and sustainable development. Several stakeholders recognize the importance of researching the different types of organizations, the profile of their members, alliances and strategies, results achieved, among others. Responding to this demand, IPES and ETC launched the “Social organizations of urban and peri-urban producers” project.

Five organizations from Latin America (Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay and Peru) and three from Europe (2 from the Netherlands and 1 from Hungary) were involved. The project involved an in-depth study of the organizations, identifying the results achieved in establishing alliances and implementing innovative strategies as well as the participatory development of action-oriented research agendas. This analysis led the project team to define profiles of farmers and organizations, develop a typology, define the management models used to forge alliances with different types of stakeholders and to influence public policy, and to formulate specific recommendations to strengthen these organizations in the coming future.

By shedding light on the farmers' organizations, we hope that the knowledge produced through this project can contribute to the development of new initiatives aimed at strengthening producers' organizations and improving urban agriculture policies.