Even in the face of the grinding poverty that is a fact of life for indigenous people living in climate-challenged regions of northern Nicaragua, some families are not just using new techniques to grow bigger and better crops, but also working to generate income by selling their surplus produce.
That was the message from a delegation from Nicaraguan organization Christian Medical Action, AMC, in a recent visit to partner Church World Service, a longtime supporter of AMC’s work in the Central American country. The delegation was in Washington, D.C. to attend a conference.
Francisco Gutierrez, program officer and a former executive director of AMC, told of how in 2005 thirty children in the Rio Coco area of northern Nicaragua faced starvation because rats had eaten all the food. AMC intervened with emergency food and also provided seeds, animals and technological assistance to struggling families in the community. As a result, malnourished children at risk for permanent physical and mental developmental defects have regained their health, and nutritionally diverse crops are thriving on farms and in family gardens.
AMC leaders attribute the progress toward food security in a region challenged by climate change and weather disasters – like Hurricane Mitch in 1998 – to the families’ embrace of programs aimed at training, teaching and transfer of technology.
“I have learned that there is a lot of capacity and knowledge in this population, ” says Gutierrez. “The people here only need support so that they can develop their capabilities.”
That is precisely what is happening at six CWS-supported demonstration farms, where some 5,000 people already have learned sustainable farming techniques ranging from organic pest control to crop diversification and soil conservation. These model farms include food storage facilities, a water source, seeds and tools, animal spaces, and plots for growing fruit, grains and vegetables.
Program participants then share what they already know from experience and what they have learned at the demonstration farms with other farmers and gardeners in their communities and beyond. AMC also promotes sustainable agriculture techniques in Matagalpa, an impoverished area of central Nicaragua. Already, the expertise gained by people in the Matagalpa communities is being transferred to indigenous people along the Rio Coco river who own land but lack the techniques necessary to get the most from that valuable resource. The Rio Coco program, implemented by AMC, is supported by CWS through the Foods Resource Bank.
“These demonstration farms empower communities to draw upon their own knowledge to help themselves,” says Gutierrez. The net result is the kind of broad information and experience sharing that is reaching beyond either Matagalpa or Rio Coco to help AMC and its partners in other areas develop a regional strategy for improving food security.
Some 80 landless participants in the program in Matagalpa are working land owned by AMC, under a program that facilitates their actual purchase of the land over a period of years. The land grant program is also supported by CWS CROP Hunger Walk funds. Gutierrez says that several families actually have completed the purchase of their land over the past seven years.
With the greater crop yields resulting from smarter farming comes a larger amount of surplus produce not needed for family meals that could be sold to earn income to pay for other necessities. To that end, Gutierrez says AMC is lobbying the government to support efforts to help people get their goods to market for sale.
And what would success look like for communities participating in the program? The security of access to nutritionally diverse food throughout the year, the ability to sell surplus food at a fair price, and increased awareness of the need to protect the environment even as the personal and economic needs of families and communities are being met.
Gutierrez says of the people, the produce and the land – “They are all a part of God’s creation and they need to be treated equally.”