http://blogs.state.gov/index.php/site/index/ en U.S. Department of State 2012-05-20T23:11:38+00:00
As part of the USAID ACCESSO initiative that targets 18,000 poor rural households in Honduras, the Diaz family was given assistance in the form of training, fertilizer, seed, and irrigation that allowed them to grow better and more nutritious food for their family. It also allowed them to produce a surplus that can be sold to generate income. Thanks to this, Mr. Diaz did not need to leave his family in search of work in the city, or abroad.

Mario Corea Pineda has gone a step further. He is a small farmer -- a carrot producer -- who, with the support of the ACCESSO program, has been able to improve the quality of his carrots so that they now meet market requirements, and are readily sold.

In my role as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Food and Agriculture agencies in Rome, I went to Honduras accompanied by five journalists from Central and South America to see the work the United States and the UN Food and Agriculture agencies are doing in the field. For me it is an opportunity to hear from U.S. and UN staff on the ground about their challenges and successes and, more importantly, from the people such as Nora and Mario, who benefit from the programs.

For the journalists who accompany me -- in this case all young and eager -- the tours are a precious opportunity to learn hands-on about what the United States is doing to improve food security through USAID and the Feed the Future program, and how its strong financial support of UN agencies such as the World Food Programme (WFP), the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), and the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) is improving the lives of poor and hungry rural families in the region.

Honduras is one of the poorest countries in the Western Hemisphere, with 65 percent of Hondurans living in poverty. It is sparsely populated and, as we discovered in just two days driving through the countryside, many rural communities are very isolated. It took us two hours driving on unpaved back-roads through beautiful, mostly uninhabited green hills, and past very primitive isolated homes, to reach the town of Reitoca. There, very much in the middle of nowhere, is a lively town of 1,000 people with a committed mayor and Municipal Grain Bank supported by FAO.

The Grain Bank has changed the lives of the farmers of Reitoca. They now have a communal facility in which to store their maize and beans so they can weather fluctuations of price and times of scarcity. The Bank buys grains at harvest time, when prices are low, and loans grains to needy families when prices rise, contingent on their commitment to use sustainable agricultural practices and evidence of shortages in the household.

In the hills of Reitoca, we also met with a farmer involved in a FAO project that is making a difference in rural mountain communities. Local famer Celso Sierra, dressed for the occasion in a brand-new shirt and shiny silver cowboy hat, explained how the agro-forestry techniques FAO advocates have enabled him to produce more, and in an environmentally sustainable way. "Now I re-harvest my own seed, I have planted trees to prevent soil erosion, and my maize yield has increased to four tons per hectare!" Celso Sierra told me.

WFP is the UN's "first response" organization for emergencies around the globe, providing timely food relief to areas hit by disasters as well as preventing hunger through programs to help communities become more food secure. In Honduras we visited a site that combined both of these roles. In Los Llanitos, a town hit by a flood last October, we observed WFP's School Feeding program in action. WEP's School Feeding program provides meals to school children, ensuring they get at least one nutritious meal a day and serving as an incentive for families to send their children to school.

Of the many promising projects that are making a difference in Honduras, the FAO/WFP organized urban gardens in the capital of Tegucigalpa were particularly striking. On the edges of an already poor city sit the colonias, or slums. In the heart of this slum of wood and tin shacks and mud, where there is no running water, vegetables are growing in the most unexpected places: truck tires, buckets, hanging coke bottles, suspended hammocks of plastic. 347 of these home gardens have been created in five poor city neighborhoods, providing women with vegetables, a sense of pride and accomplishment, and a community group. Twenty-year-old Zullema Ulloa, her best dress and heels contrasting with the shack behind her, told me how this garden made her feel good. "I not only spend less on these foods, and save money, but I am also contributing to the household economy, in addition to taking care of my son," she said.

All the projects we saw are making a difference. Now we must scale them up, so more people can participate and benefit, and ultimately break free of assistance. To do this we must work in partnership with UN agencies, NGOs, and national governments to ensure they invest in agricultural development and in women as well as promote involvement by the private sector. I was encouraged in Honduras by the active participation of the Minister of Agriculture and Livestock Jacobo Ragalado, who I thank, along with my fellow U.S. Ambassador Lisa Kubiske for accompanying us enthusiastically on the tour, as well as by the eagerness of the representatives of the U.S. government and the UN agencies to strengthen their work in the future.

And I am happy to know that Nora Diaz, her two children, and her husband will be together this year.]]> http://blogs.state.gov/index.php/entires/nutrition_agriculture_honduras/ 2012-01-06T20:06:39+00:00 Cooperativa Agricola Integral Mujeres Quatro Pinos (Integrated Women's Agricultural Cooperative) in the central highlands of Guatemala is a heartening example of what women can accomplish when they set their minds to it, work together and receive the necessary investment support.

I visited Quatro Pinos' vegetable production, processing, and marketing operation last month on a media tour of Guatemala as the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations agencies in Rome.

In just six years, the cooperative has grown from a group of 35 women with small vegetable plots to a 350-member cooperative that manages 415 acres of land. Since the fall of 2010, they have quadrupled their production from 450,000 to 2 million pounds of vegetables. They grow snow peas, English peas, string beans, and mini carrots that they then process, package and export -- much to the United States.

What makes Quatro Pinos so succesful? I think the key ingredient is its core group of proud, dynamic, hard-working, and determined women coupled with some strategic assistance from the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), in the form of access to loans, markets, business training, and cooperation from the private sector -- in this case AGEXPORT, the Guatemalan exporters' association.

It was an uphill climb as these women struggled for the right to work and create their business in a male-dominated society. At the beginning (2004) the local governing council -- without a single woman on its board -- strongly resisted the formation of the coop and initially blocked all efforts to set it up. And later, even after granting permission to establish the coop, only men from the council could decide which women were admitted. But slowly, with determination, the women prevailed.

As I listened to these hardworking women explain the history of their coop, I was excited to hear how this initiative had changed their lives, by giving them an income and helping them achieve an unprecedented level of independence.

Piedad Flores, now the head of projects at Quatro Pinos, farmed just a quarter of an acre of land, but thanks to the co-op she was able to obtain a loan and purchase more land, "Now I am an owner!" she said proudly.

Two other projects we visited in Guatemala that day provide similar support to local communities. The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Food for Progress program in Chimaltenango is supporting 3,291 local farmers with technology (greenhouses, combined irrigation and fertilizer systems, cold storage, and collecting centers), training in farming techniques such as composting, and help in the commercialization of their products. We watched them plant organic gardens, saw where they processed their produce and made jams, and visited a flower workshop where women were shown how to give added value to the flowers they grow by packaging them in appealing ways. The USDA project has benefited from the service of experts from the Borlaug Institute, part of the Texas A&M University system, and funds from USAID. It will be turned over to a local organization, SENDEC, at the end of the year.

We also observed similar projects supported by our UN partners down near the coast in the Rancho Alegre community in San Andres Villa Seca (Retalhuleu province). This is the site of a World Food Programme (WFP) Purchase for Progress (P4P) project working in conjunction with the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), to support a local small farmers' organization (ASODINA). P4P encourages these farmers to produce a surplus of maize and black beans that the WFP then purchases for its emergency operations in the area, while concurrently helping them find other purchasers. As always in Guatemala, the Rancho Alegre farmers welcomed us enthusiastically, and I was proud to cut the ribbon for the inauguration of their new agro-storage facility there. Nearby, we met farmer Eliot Gonzales and his family of eight, who shyly posed for a photo with me in front of their healthy corn field sown with drought-tolerant seeds provided by the FAO, which also assisted Eliot with techniques to improve his production.

Guatemala undoubtedly faces great challenges in terms of inequality, security, and especially poverty and malnutrition -- largely among its big indigenous population. But as I told the many people I met there, I left Guatemala with a profound sense of hope, a real confidence that given the proper support, local communities already command the essential ingredients for a brighter future. These are proud and determined people who are eager to learn, and eager to improve their lot. The United States and the UN organizations, in concert with the government of Guatemala, must continue to give them an opportunity to reach their true potential.]]> http://blogs.state.gov/index.php/entires/guatemala_better_future/ 2012-01-04T16:44:29+00:00