Community Organizing & Training for Food Security with Indigenous Families, Guatemala

Women in Totonicapan managing their water filtration system. Photo: Robert Muj/CIEDEG

Conferencia de Iglesias Evangelicas de Guatemala (CIEDEG)
Conference of Evangelical Churches in Guatemala

"We are very pleased with the level of interest by families in Totonicapan with the CIEDEG agricultural program," says Roberto Muj, program director of CWS Guatemalan partner CIEDEG. "We expected 570 families to become involved over a three-year period," adds Muj, "but 674 families are now taking part in projects after just the first year."

Needs are great in Guatemala, where more than 50 percent of people live in poverty. Some 60 percent of Guatemalans are indigenous. A 36-year armed conflict that ended in 1996 negatively impacted life in Guatemala, killing some 200,000 people, and resulting in "many widows, single mothers, orphans, and immigrants to the U.S.,"says Muj.

greenhouse

Farm families with their community greenhouse.
Photo: Roberto Muj/CIEDEG

Totonicapan department has an elevation of 8,000 feet. Farm families are learning to overcome the challenges of growing vegetables at the high altitude in the cool climate--and on rocks and hillsides--with the help of CIEDEG, Church World Service, and Foods Resource Bank. FRB raises funds for agricultural projects in developing countries through growing projects in the U.S.

CIEDEG is training the most vulnerable families so they can increase food production on their small parcels, develop new water collection methods, use available natural resources, grow and use new crops, make their own fertilizer, improve family nutrition, develop better organization, and share what they’ve learned with other members of their community.

The families are growing warm climate vegetables such as tomatoes, chili peppers, and cucumbers in greenhouses made from plastic sheeting stretched over wooden frames. They are also incorporating other strategies, including terracing on hills, composting, and water conservation.

Recycled wash water that is run through simple filters is used to water crops. And the farmers are improving the garden soil using decomposed leaves, manure, eggshells, sand, lime, and ashes.

The communities are also planting trees, including fruit trees, and learning how to trim, fertilize, and graft them. Some families are also learning to grow mushrooms.

Outside of the greenhouses in the warmer months, they are growing a variety of vegetables to help improve family nutrition, including radishes, peas, squash, green beans, broccoli, cauliflower, and carrots.

In one community, the ground was too rocky for the women to grow enough vegetables for family consumption. In an innovative approach developed by Muj, they--and their children--are now turning used tires inside out and filling them with a soil mixture to grow vegetables. The old tires provide easy-to-manage raised beds.

"The response from women and children to the tire project has been great," says Muj. "The children don’t think theyre working, but that they’re playing when they make a garden in old tires."

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