Agricultural projects

I grew up in a blue collar suburb of Philadelphia. My dad’s father had a greenhouse for raising flowers. My father as the youngest son worked on the family's large lawn and in the greenhouse. But when he moved out to the suburbs he had a small yard, to avoid the work, I think.

But when I moved out to Iowa in 1983 I began to get really interested in agriculture. Iowa brings that on – but being involved in campus ministry at a land grant university deepened my interest. And so here in Honduras, where most of the people live in the country and try to sustain a livelihood off the land, I am even more interested in agriculture. In some ways I wish I had taken some time in Ames to learn more. But that only means that here in Honduras I have to find ag teachers. And they are here, campesinos who’ve worked the land for years as well as some incredible persons who have a storehouse of agricultural knowledge that I think some profs would envy.

This past Friday and Saturday I had the opportunity to see two parish-based agricultural programs that are just beginning but hold a lot of promise. They both seek to increase the food security of the people involved but also see the need to provide some crops for market.

Friday I went with Manuel, an agriculture program staff from Caritas, to Pinalejo, in the department of Santa Barbara. It’s in one of the parishes of the dioceses staffed by Spanish Passionist priests. Padre Julián is working with members of his parish to begin a series of projects. A young agronomist (who has a 40 manzana banana plantation nearby) is volunteering his time to help. This is amazing since I have not found many Hondurans with a volunteer ethic. Mauricio is very clear that he is doing this as part of his faith, responding to a God who calls us to love our neighbors.

The project is multi-faceted. One part is working with greenhouses that have been sent from Spain. There are efforts to improve the production of basic grains (corn and beans) and to introduce or improve family gardens. But one of the most ambitious – and possibly most beneficial projects – is to set up in the parish a sort of vegetable and basic grains market. The project would buy the vegetables and grains at a price that is the same as or higher than what the buyers are paying but would sell them at an equal or a lower price than they are being sold for in the market. In this way both the producers and the consumers would benefit. It will be interesting to see how this works out. At their October meeting they will elect a governing board – a commercialization committee.

After the meeting Mauricio explained to the 20 men and 1 woman how to start banana “offshoots” in soil-filled plastic bags (which speeds up the early growth process). He is providing them with 800 offshoots. There might be a small price but all who receive the offshoots have to provide the parish with offshoots from their place – therefore seeking to make the program somewhat sustainable. And, as Mauricio said, there’s always a market for bananas.

Saturday morning I went out to the parish of Dulce Nombre. They have an ambitious project for 23 villages of the parish, financed but Manos Unidas, a Spanish non-governmental organization, that includes work in production of basic grains, family gardens, and sustainable agricultural practices. The other villages will also be helped, mostly with family garden projects, with funds sent from St. Thomas Aquinas Church in Ames.

Don Claro Lara had been working with the group the previous day on theory of sustainable gardens and other topics including terraces and zero tillage. I arrived to find the group out in the parish garden hoeing and preparing the beds for seeds. I was pleasantly surprised to see 37 people at work. They were from 19 villages and included 13 women and a large contingent of young people in their teens and twenties. It was quite impressive. They planted some crops but one bed was set aside as a started bed for onions and two other crops.

After this I was talking with Father Efraín Romero, the pastor who wrote up the project and obtained the funding. He was pleased with the workshop but told me that the parish had distributed 14,000 pineapple starters. The people will have to pay back in two years by providing two starter plants from the ones they have grown. Another sustainable project, with a very marketable crop.

These were two good days – opportunities to see what can be done, as well as to see what are some of the problems and obstacles.

I really hope Caritas Santa Rosa can begin to promote and get funding for these and other sustainable development projects. I hope to work on these after I get back from a three week trip to the US in October, first to the east coast to visit friends and family and then two weeks in Iowa.