Agros Blog

We are excited to announce the launch of Achotales, our 37th Agros village and our third community in Honduras.  This group of 25 families have come together with a single, basic dream — to develop and own land in order to create a thriving, sustainable community.  The families of Achotales are now well on their way to realizing this dream.

In April 2002, a group of twelve farmers began to organize and explore the possibility of owning fertile land.  At the time they were working as field workers for landowners in the northern part of the Gualala Santa Bárbara region of Honduras.  The poverty they had been forced to endure for so long was such that owning land was more of a dream than a tangible reality.

Along the way one landowner took heart in their cause and decided to lend them a piece of land, hoping that the National Agrarian Institute (NAI), an institution devoted to agrarian reform in Honduras, would eventually help them purchase the land.  While actual purchase through the NAI never worked out, they nevertheless spent four years working the land, cultivating beans and corn.  One day the group made contact with Agros International, and together they began to explore the possibility of launching an Agros village.

The group now known as Achotales is currently made up of 25 families. They have formed a leadership team, as well as Production, Security, Commercialization, and Health committees. They are currently able to provide food security for their families, utilizing 46 acres of corn and almost one acre of beans. The families are receiving training in organic agriculture and improved techniques for growing basic grains, as well as learning how to maximize their 0.8 acre plot of plantains.

Women have received training in growing and using nutritious plants to improve their families’ health, and two members of the community have been selected to receive training to serve as community health promoters.

Though the families are organized, hard working, and united, there is still a great deal of work to do.  The Agros development model is not a quick fix or silver bullet.  We take a long term approach, working to equip and train families holistically and empowering them to do the actual work.  Sustainability is ensured by making sure the families themselves are the major decision makers, and that the goals and labor is their own.

By providing a hand up and not a ‘hand out’, the families are able to work their way out of poverty with a profound and simple dignity. This is land, hope, and life made real through the dreams and hard work of twenty-five new Agros families!