Tuesday afternoon Daniel and I set out to Cusco with the intention to track down someone from the University of Cusco's Department of Agriculture. The campus of the Agriculture department is on the outskirts of Cusco, a 20-30 minute bus ride from the main campus. We arrived around 3pm and found out that the classes end by 1:30pm and that all of the professors and the dean were gone. With no other choice we headed back to the center of Cusco to visit the Ministry of Agriculture to see if we could find someone to speak with. 
At the Ministry, we checked in with security and asked where we should go to find someone who worked in organic fertilizers. We were directed to the second floor of building to the rear of the lot, where INIA was stationed. INIA is the National Institute of Agricultural Innovation, part of the Ministry. The engineer who works in organic agriculture was traveling for the week but we were given his email address and told that the morning of the following Tuesday would be a good time to meet with him. We were also given the telephone number for the dean of the Department of Agriculture, something we weren't able to obtain at the campus security station.
On our way out Daniel noticed another office he wanted to look into. INCAGRO is a small office within the Ministry of Agriculture lot and we stopped in to present our work and find out what they do. We discovered that the office is in charge of a competition that awards funds to agriculture producers (associations, communities, etc.), based on the evaluations of proposals that such producers submit to the agency. These proposals must be sustainable and benefit their community. The funds used for the competition come from the World Bank and the agency is run by the state, the employees are paid by the state, the World Bank funds are only given to the agriculture producers that win the competition. The current competition is in the evaluation phase and the next competition will start in 2011.
We are still waiting on the community assembly in Media Luna, it has been postponed yet again to November 22nd, the day before I leave Urubamba. This is extremely frustrating as we cannot make any concrete decisions without the consent of the community. Hopefully, I will be able to present the findings of the diagnostic to the board of community leaders on November 8th.
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