December 2019 - Agriculture
The primary purpose of the El Rosario Agriculture Assessment Trip was to document existing conditions regarding farming practices and land resources in the community of El Rosario. Climate change is putting pressure on small farmers throughout Central America and many other parts of the world. It is ACTS' hope that a program can be developed to help the community of El Rosario adapt to climate change, and that such a program could then be tweaked to roll out to the other communities in the Locomapa Valley and beyond.
In support of our primary purpose, the team conducted an open meeting with the community of El Rosario to explain what we were there to do, and why, and to answer questions, address concerns, and hear ideas. We inspected many fields of crops and pastures, and took soil samples for laboratory analysis. We interviewed farmers to understand current agricultural and animal husbandry practices. We observed several potential sources of irrigation water, and visited the Honduran Foundation for Agricultural Research (FHIA), a potential program ally in the city of La Lima.
Going forward, an agricultural program must be designed that in the short term can allow the soil to recover, while still feeding the people and the animals. In the long term, the program must provide for food, income, and animal grazing that support each other and the land, and do not require perpetual financial or technical inputs from ACTS. We think this is possible, but it will require several distinct but coordinated interventions. The community must be a part of the development of this program, and the majority of people in El Rosario will need to be actively engaged.
