The IAA “Institute for Alternative Agriculture”, formerly called “Institute of Agricultural Support”, was the first organization to adopt the Unu Kamachiq Raymi methodology, after the first trials carried out by PRODERM (see: http://www.sierraproductiva.org/yachachiq/Home/Yachachiqs).
IAA played an important role in the history of Pachamama Raymi, so it is interesting to note that the IAA experimented with this new methodology from 1989 onwards, under the direction of economist Hugo Wiener Fresco, who proposed the methodology to the non-profit organization CEDAP in Ayacucho.
Later, Hugo Wiener evaluated the two first years of Pachamama Raymi in the PAC-II project in Bolivia, and supported the design of MARENASS with his experience. Hugo was the co-founder of DEXCEL.
During these years, IAA developed its own version of Pachamama Raymi, using the same name. Eventually, they managed to get much publicity, under the direction of Carlos Paredes, which the name Sierra Productiva (Productive Highlands). It became known that the possibility existed that poverty in the Peruvian Andes could be eradicated.
The Pachamama Raymi methodology mainly inspired the methodology used by IAA with the farmer-to-farmer (peer-learning) element, of which, in a motivating environment, the most visible element is the contest among the participants.
IAA opted to eliminate the contest, which in the IAA variant of the methodology has become a small event, a “festival”, like it used to be in the first version of the Unu Kamachiq project in PRODERM.
With this methodology, IAA was just as ineffective as Unu Kamachiq, since it did not incorporate the important motivating elements. However, PRODERM and other variants of Pachamama Raymi chose to modify the contest in the style of Unu Kamachiq, achieving high levels of effectiveness and efficiency in regards to the adoption of the innovations. By not incorporating a strong element of motivation, the IAA methodology -Sierra Productiva-, resembles the “farmer-to-farmer” the methodology, known from the National Union of Farmers and Ranchers from Nicaragua (UNAG) since 1989.