School Visits to CAO's Farm & Addressing Rural Poverty in Honduras

School Visits to CAO's Farm and Vegetable Garden

February 17, 2024

David teaching the students to compost and working in the garden

David is the student who is mostly in charge of the vegetable garden. He makes the compost and the garden beds where we plant vegetables. Today David got the chance to teach what he does to a group of elementary school students who came to learn about organic farming. We received a group of students from the bilingual school in Quimistan, called HIBS (Honduran Independence Bilingual School), which is another project founded by Glen. The elementary school students visited the garden to learn about how the different vegetables are grown, how the compost is made, and how the farm works with biodiversity.

David gave an explanation and demonstration of how to make compost. The compost is made in a large hole dug in the ground. The ingredients they add are…

• Sawdust

• Cow manure

• Worm castings

• Decomposed coffee pulp

• Chicken poop

• Leaves (they used Nacis)

• Dirt

• Kitchen scraps

• Bokashi (a version made with ash)

• Lime (cal)

• Dry grass

• Plenty of water

They allow this material to decompose for 5 months before the compost is ready. Evelin, the manager at CAO, was also present to receive the students and answered many of their questions. Evelin explained to the teachers and students of HIBS that they don’t have to use exactly these materials but can also use materials that they find in their homes, especially kitchen scraps and leaves.

The visiting students and teachers asked many questions about how to save and store seeds, what can go into the compost and what cannot, etc. There was a lot of interest and curiosity, and there were also a lot of shrieks of “ewww” followed by giggles. These visits are a lot of fun for the children to get out of the classroom and be curious about how food is produced.

February 19, 2024

Visiting the Trash Dump in Quimistan

This morning, Glen took us in his truck to drop off the inorganic trash from the farm at the local dump. Adults and children searched trash bags to find plastic to collect and recycle for a small income. This is a harsh reality of global poverty in which many people live in precarious and desperate conditions to try to meet their daily basic needs. Honduras has some of the highest poverty rates in Latin America and the Caribbean and very slow progress in poverty reduction. Here is some data on poverty in Honduras to put this into perspective:

In 2018, an estimated 48.3% of Hondurans (around 4.3 million people) lived below the national poverty line. Meanwhile an estimated 22.9% percent of Hondurans (around 2 million people) lived below the national extreme poverty line. (World Bank Group, Poverty and Equity Brief, Honduras, 2020)

It is also important to note that poverty is concentrated in rural areas. The same report found that in 2018, 60.1% of the rural population lived below the official poverty line (around 2.5 million poor).

Quimistan trash dump; Plastic collected from the local dump

In this context of widespread poverty, projects for rural development that address both environmental and social challenges are very important. It is important to recognize that people's ability to earn a dignified livelihood that meets their basic needs depends on the access to clean, healthy, natural resources and productive, healthy land. The ability for rural people to earn an income and provide for their families into the next generation depends on the long-term sustainability of their land and resources. Therefore, the social and the environmental issues are intertwined.

From my conversations with the youth who are students on the farm, their experience at CAO has opened up new ideas about how to manage their land in the future without depending on chemical fertilizers and cutting down trees. They also have new business ideas for their farms to generate an income.

Global poverty is a huge issue that requires systemic changes and questioning the rules that reinforce inequality. At the local level, development projects that provide opportunities, knowledge, and skills for youth to innovate and learn about sustainable practices is a great asset for their futures. We need to think and work at both global and local levels to create long-lasting change.