 "Photo: Courtesy Photos")
 "Photo: Courtesy Photos")
 "Photo: Courtesy Photos")
The idea for Guatemalan Food for Progress Project was a result of a meeting between Carlos Blanco, a former A&M student and resident of Guatemala, and the director of the Norman Borlaug Institute for International Agriculture at Texas A&M, concerning the possibility of an agricultural program in Guatemala, said Johanna Roman, the program's coordinator.
The institute, which works to develop sustainable food sources in agriculture, drafted a proposal that was accepted by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The draft was to provide the institute with soy-bean meal to be sold in Guatemala to raise $3 million for a two-year project, which started in 2005.
"We started with helping local farmers in the Mayan communities of Guatemala, teaching them how to grow better crops, process them and sell them," Roman said. "Right now we are concentrating our efforts in setting up processing centers so that the indigenous women from Guatemala [may] can their vegetables and fruits, and we are also establishing centers that will be used to process Bio-Diesel.
"Through the training component of the project we have conducted over 350 short courses and we have invited faculty members and staff from A&M to go down there and provide this training.
"We also had 10 students participate [as interns] in the project. They traveled to Guatemala and spent 10 weeks working there for us. They were able to provide training and also help with the marketing component of the project."
The training is conducted at three levels. At the most basic level courses are conducted in indigenous Mayan villages where farmers are taught more effective agricultural techniques as well as involving the communities in the establishment of small businesses.
"The farmers bring their families, their kids to the training," Roman said. "Sometimes there is no electricity, so we use a lot of visual aids like posters."
The language barrier has been a problem in the implementation of these courses. People in the region use a variety of Mayan dialects, so, at times, as many as three translators have been required to get the message to the people.
The next level of training involves agronomists who are taught agricultural techniques so that they can go back to their communities and teach the farmers what they have learned.
The final level of training is at the professional level and is conducted in the major cities. It deals with issues of trade and is offered to exporters and students.
A small component involves bringing researchers and agricultural engineers from Guatemala to A&M for seminars and workshops pertaining to food processing, organic fertilizers and bio-diesel production.
"The main purpose of this project was not only to teach them to produce better yields but to form small businesses," Roman said. "For example in one of the communities, using project funds, we established a composting unit. We purchased a shredder so that they could use weeds that grow around their area and coffee pulp to produce compost. And now they are bagging and selling the compost, so that is helping their economy."
Rudy Navichoc, an agricultural engineer and project technician, visited A&M to participate in a workshop on the use of organics. "Before we used chemical [fertilizers], but now we know that compost is better than chemicals," he said.
The farmers in Guatemala were shown onions grown in demonstration plots to show the difference between organic and chemical fertilizer. "Onions grown in organic are green - dark green - [while] those grown with chemicals are yellow and different colors," Navichoc said. "The chemicals are expensive while the organic is cheap because I can make my own compost."
The project has attempted to increase the involvement of women in all aspects of program. As a result women have started small food processing centers in their own homes.
"After teaching them how to process tropical fruits we see that they have established small businesses in their homes where they are selling tropical fruit juices and ice creams. So basically they have been forming small agribusinesses," Roman said. "As a result they can now send their children to school and the women are bringing more income to their family.
"We also taught them how to diversify their products, so some of the farmers who were only growing corn are now also growing vegetables, not only for their own consumption but they go to the local market and sell them so that they have income year round and not just when they harvest their corn," Roman said. "We have established greenhouses and irrigations systems in their communities, so their cropping system has been improved."
Sergio Noriega, an agricultural engineer who visited A&M said: "The project has been very helpful in introducing new technologies in sectors where nobody had come and provided help. We have also been effective in changing the way they think about agriculture and they have now realized that agriculture is a business. With the organic compost they are producing, with the flowers and the new processing centers, farmers have realized that they can add value to their products so they can sell them in different markets and at better prices."
"They learned a lot, a couple of them were using agricultural techniques taught the previous year and were looking forward to this year's courses," said Yanet Rodriguez, a junior animal science major who interned in Guatemala summer 2007. "A couple of the women had started to can products."
"The establishment of the food processing centers will have a very positive effect on the communities because these farmers associations before were only getting help in the short term, and now through the establishment of this business they will have sustainable long term assistance for their community," Noriega said.
Roman said the institute has opportunities for students to participate in, and the projects can be a rewarding experience
"Every single person who has gone and worked for our project comes back completely transformed and they help a lot to improve the quality of life of poor people," she said.
Rodriguez agreed: "I really [came to] value everything that I have and everything I have achieved by just being out there and seeing how hard it is to get there. And making new friends, the people in the communities were really nice.
"I am very happy that A&M took part in this, it's changing other people's lives for the better. People really did value what A&M and the USDA were doing for them. They were so excited they wished the project could continue for a bit longer."
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