Agros Blog

CATALYST Strategic Design Review has just published their most recent edition, and included is a beautiful layout and article on Agros.

The article includes a case study, chart, map, and in-depth articulation of Agros’ work to help rural poor communities create their own sustainable economies.

From their website, “CATALYST articles and posts emphasize the value of applying the creative design process to the solution of complex challenges.”

We all know that systemic, generational poverty has multiple causes.  Alleviating poverty in any region is hard, complex work.  From the magazine’s editorial perspective, strategic design is achieved (in any discipline) when sustainable systems are put in place that solve multiple problems.  This article is an attempt to show how Agros’ development model embodies the principles of a sustainable, holistic, and strategic solution to poverty.

There are two versions of the article, one that includes the full layout and design, and the other in simple text:

READ THE RICH-TEXT VERSION /  READ THE PLAIN TEXT VERSION

At the gracious invitation and arrangement of Mario Fajardo , owner of the Honduran eco-tourist ranch, La Estancia El Pedregal,  an interview of a recent Agros Vision Trip was conducted by two members of a Honduran national daily newspaper, and local television news station, the Diario Tiempo.

Participants on that Agros trip were Bellevue business leader, Barry Rowan, Harvard Graduate students and representatives from Menlo Park Presbyterian Church and  Bay area businesses.  Enjoy the following translation of this special coverage, benefiting all involved!

Below is a translation of the article from the Diario Tiempo. To read the article in Spanish click here. 

Read the rest of this entry »

A recent article from Yahoo News México, discussed a crisis in the rural economy of México. Farmers in rural México have seen their purchasing power decrease by 44 percent. This has affected their ability to buy basic goods such as food, clothing, and medicine. This decrease in purchasing power has caused many in rural communities to migrate to the cities in search of higher paying jobs. The Mexican government has tried to improve the situation in rural areas by issuing families monthly allowances but this unfortunately has not helped improve the situation.

While issuing monthly allowances will help the rural poor of México in the short-term, it will do nothing to alleviate poverty in the long-term. If people are living hand to mouth and are not given opportunities to invest in their families and their communities they will remain poor.

Agros seeks to end poverty by providing farmers and villagers with the necessary tools to build strong, functioning rural economies. Giving people the tools to create jobs for themselves is just one way in which Agros helps whole villages break out of the cycle of poverty.

Agros works in Chiapas, México and the villages there have had a very positive and successful relationship with Agros. Agros México utilizes a farmer centric approach to sustainable rural development and it may help reverse the situation taking place in rural México.

Here in the US we can all push for rural economic development policies that address the deep rooted problems that cause inefficiencies in these markets and ultimately subject millions to an existence of grinding poverty.

Pedro, a college student starting his last year of studies in Agronomy, is from the Agros village of La Esperanza. Next year, he will be the first college graduate from his community and his family could not be more proud. Unfortunately, many children who grow up in rural communities in Guatemala do not have the same opportunities or support that Pedro received growing up in an Agros village.

A recent article from The Economist, A National Shame, examines the extreme social, economic and political inequality in Guatemala. In certain indigenous areas of rural Guatemala, chronic malnutrition affects over 80% of children. Malnutrition results in stunted growth and learning difficulties for children, greatly compromising their potential future productivity.

“A National Shame” describes how the government’s failure to provide basic services to rural indigenous populations has resulted in severe underdevelopment: two-thirds of rural Guatemalans live in poverty.  These people were” totally abandoned in the mountains with no infrastructure, no education, no health,” says Rafael Espada, the vice-president of Guatemala. If the government continues to fail to provide good schools and health care for the majority of people, the article concludes, malnutrition will continue.

In Guatemala, Agros works with indigenous communities to help families achieve food security, obtain access to essential services, and start productive agricultural businesses that enable the entire community to overcome extreme poverty.  As rural families in Guatemala build thriving communities, they are able impact both neighboring villages and their regional economy.

We are directly challenging the despair so many feel when faced with constant hunger and extreme poverty.  Working in one of the most impoverished regions in the world, Agros is bringing practical, long-term, sustainable solutions to thousands who were once desperately hungry, and without hope.

I was recently interviewed by Wandering Educators, a “global community of educators, sharing travel experiences”.  They are a fascinating group, and their publisher, Dr. Jessie Voigts, took great care in learning about Agros and sharing our mission with their community.

You can read the interview at their site with photos and video, or here is the text below:

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WE: One of the most important things that we in international education can do to change the world is to help others. Because we travel, live, and learn around the world, we have a unique chance to be change agents for those who need it. I have been so very impressed with one organization, Agros International, that is working on ending extreme rural poverty.We’ve featured Agros International here on WanderingEducators before, as part of a story about SalaamGarage, which leads adventures that collaborate with International NGOs with the goal to cause change through creating and sharing intentional content.  I was so very impressed with Agros International that I contacted Sean Dimond, Director of Marketing and Communications at Agros. He was happy to share all that Agros is doing with our readers, and I was fascinated at this extraordinary project. We were lucky enough to sit down with Sean and talk about poverty, international development, and more.

WE: Tell us about Agros International.

SD: Today, literally half of the people on our planet live on $2.50 per day or less.  The vast majority of those families live in rural areas, dependent on farmable land for income, security, and survival.  A significant majority of those families do not have ownership or a secure stake in the land they depend on.

In our hemisphere, the poorest countries are in Central America, where approximately 65% of the population lives in extreme poverty.  The majority of these families live in rural areas, and are landless.  Landlessness is one of the most important indicators of extreme, rural poverty.

Agros exists to empower rural, poor families throughout Central America and Mexico to literally work their way out of extreme poverty, with dignity.  We do this by providing communities with long-term credit for land purchase, holistic community development, and agricultural business training.  By partnering with Agros, families are able to start, develop, and eventually own a thriving, economically sustainable village.

In a nutshell, Agros exists to end rural poverty in this region – one village at a time.  With almost 40 village projects across five countries, the work of Agros is enabling thousands of men, women, and children to work and achieve the dream of a future free of crushing, long-term, extreme poverty.

WE:  What was the genesis of Agros?

SD: In 1982 Skip Li, a local Seattle attorney, was attending a conference and he heard a speaker casually mention a news article from the morning paper.  The article was about the millions of dollars the United States was spending on covert military activity in the civil wars raging throughout Central America. This speaker made the comment that if you used that money to buy land for the rural poor, the wars might cease.

Skip couldn’t sleep that night. A few months later he was on a plane, flying into Guatemala. Skip was the son of a Chinese diplomat and had spent time growing up in both Colombia and Guatemala, witnessing extreme poverty in these countries on a daily basis.

The burning question that caused Skip to fly into a raging Guatemalan civil war was this — could you buy land privately and loan it to small communities of landless farmers until they secured the resources to purchase it?  Could this be an effective means to ending poverty?  That question launched Agros into existence.

Twenty-five years later, Agros has helped thousand of people across Central America and Mexico start and own economically sustainable villages.  Rural families beat down by war, natural disaster, lack of access to basic services, racism, and extreme poverty are today building new lives for themselves.

Landless families are not only able to achieve the dream of having their own land to call home, to use as a means for food security, to create thriving agricultural businesses — they are also developing assets that they can pass down to future generations.

The exciting thing is that this transformation occurs because the people we work with have the ability to do it themselves — they simply need the support and training to make it happen.  In this way, Agros is not merely providing a hand-out, but a hand-up.  We not only teach people “how to fish”, but we enable them to also own the pond.

WE: So much of international development work seems ineffectual, or top-heavy. How is Agros working to be different?

SD: Argos addresses the root, systemic causes of poverty.  We also use a somewhat unique definition of poverty — we define poverty as “broken relationships”.  And I do not mean this in a Hallmark greeting card sense.

For the rural poor, all of the fundamental connections that make up a sustainable way of life are damaged or destroyed.  Families are broken apart through migration; relationships with local municipalities are often broken; complex environmental and cultural systems break down; on and on… so many of the critical relationships that determine the health of a community are destroyed by extreme poverty.

Further, the causes and solutions to extreme poverty cannot be effectively reduced to just the individual or family level.  Instead, economic, cultural, social and personal factors all play into establishing generational cycles of poverty that extend across communities.

Agros has learned over the years that restoring all of the aspects that make up a healthy community is required to ensure economic sustainability.  A holistic understanding of people leads us to a holistic understanding of human transformation. There is much more to alleviating poverty than technological change, increased income, or the improvement of merely material well-being.

For Agros, we’ve learned that if you really want to get at the root issues of poverty in a way that makes a lasting difference — a difference that offers new hope and opportunity for generations to come — you’ve got to approach these issues holistically.

A holistic model of development requires a connection between the various parts of the whole. In other words, we work to create a context where rural families themselves are, over time, empowered to restore the various relationships that break down in extreme poverty.

We do this by using a participatory, values-based approach.  When we work with a new group of families, rather than do a traditional ‘needs assessment’, we start with the assumption that their needs are self-evident, and a more powerful place to start is by having the families identify and name their assets, their values, their dreams.

Living in extreme poverty has for many destroyed the basic human ability to dream of a new and better future.  We want families to dream again, and not only to dream… but to be empowered to make those dreams reality.

We also realize that there is no magic bullet or single answer to alleviating poverty.  This is tough, difficult work.  Many people here in North America are familiar with the devastating poverty statistics that exist – but you cannot reduce these issues to mere numbers.  We’re talking about real people who are complex and multi-faceted and full of enormous potential.

WE:  How can a sustainable approach work with so many different cultural actors? Are there intercultural differences that you need to take into consideration with each project?

SD: Absolutely.  We have a highly effective, five-component development model, but we realize that this model needs to be contextualized within a given community dynamic.  We do not have a ‘cookie-cutter’ approach.  At the end of the day, our work is only successful if the families themselves are able to create a better life for themselves.  We’ll provide the access to long-term credit, support, training, basic infrastructure, encouragement… but the families have to do the work themselves, and they each have to bring their concerns, hopes, and unique context to the process.

Further, we work with a culturally diverse array of families.  We work with indigenous Mayan communities in the highlands of Guatemala; rural “campesinos” in Nicaragua; refugee communities in Chiapas, Mexico; and so on.  In each case, a holistic approach creates the setting where the unique values, dreams, and aspirations of each family are taken into account.

WE:  How can people help Agros?

SD: In this difficult, global economic downturn it is the extreme poor who suffer the most.  When facing hard economic times, instead of reducing the gasoline, or college education, or food budgets — rural poor families go hungry.  They simply don’t have budgets to cut. Living on the extreme
margins of society leaves these families incredibly vulnerable, particularly in a time of such historic economic downturn.

So to be perfectly frank, what we need is continued financial support.  Please consider a one-time gift, or perhaps a monthly gift, to support and empower rural, poor families to work their way out of poverty.

WE: Is there anything else you’d like to share with us?

SD: Just my gratitude.  We are, I believe, at a critical time in human history.  The global connections that exist between nations are such that our ability to collectively invest in sustainable solutions to some of the most dire problems on the planet are more important than ever before.  The challenges of resource consumption, the environment, food security, disease, extreme poverty — these challenges must be met by unique and lasting solutions…not by quick fixes and temporary approaches.  The work of Agros International is, I believe, one important voice in this larger conversation.  Further, the families in Central America and Mexico who are learning to dream again have an even more important voice in this conversation, and I’m grateful for being able to share a bit of what we are accomplishing together.

Thank you for allowing us the privilege of sharing this life transforming work.

WE: Thank you, Sean, for sharing Agros International with us. It is incredible, life-changing, important work – and so very inspiring.

The following is a joint op-ed article published yesterday (10/08/08) in the Seattle Times.  This was written by Tim Hanstad of the Rural Development Institute, Greg Rake of Agros International, and Marty Kooistra of Habitat for Humanity.

You can read the published op-ed at the Seattle Times website by clicking here.

Seattle groups work to secure land, shelter rights

By Tim Hanstad, Greg Rake and Marty Kooistra

Special to The Times

Many of us in the U.S. don’t think much about the relationship between land ownership and poverty. But for the 1.4 billion people on our planet who survive on less than $1 a day, land is the most important asset they could have. It is the crucial source of shelter, food, income and security. And for the poorest in the United States, land and homeownership remains the unfulfilled American dream. This past Monday’s World Habitat Day is an opportunity to call attention to the universal need for secure land rights and shelter.

For Padma, a woman living in rural India, becoming a landowner transformed her life. Like many women in developing countries, Padma did not have legal rights to property. She worked as a day laborer, when work was available, earning 18 cents a day. Her children, who came to the fields with her, ate only one meal of rice gruel a day, not enough to provide them with the vital micronutrients they needed to thrive. They squatted in poor shelter, with poor sanitation and the threat of disease, and were prone to exploitation.

Today, Padma is a landowner. She earns $5 a day with the flower business she started on her small plot of land. The income allowed her to build a home, grow plenty of food and send her children to school, giving them a future full of possibility. With help from RDI, a Seattle-based nonprofit that helps governments provide secure land rights for the poor, the government of India is now giving the same “micro-land ownership” opportunities to millions of families like Padma’s, providing shelter, food security and economic prosperity at little cost.

Padma’s story is not uncommon. In the Ixil region of Guatemala, landless rural residents spend days marching to the coast to work on plantations. In return, they are offered “rights” to plant corn and beans on land that is only marginally productive, leading to malnutrition and hunger. This migration means that families are either separated or, more often than not, everyone who can must go to work. As a result, few children attend school.

Last year, five of these young people graduated from a Guatemalan university. This was possible only because their parents purchased land through another Seattle-based nonprofit, Agros International. With the land, the parents no longer had to migrate and the children were able to go to school. Four of the five graduates were daughters, and all have moved back to their villages to give back to their communities.

The work of these Seattle-based organizations demonstrates the many benefits secure land tenure provides: food security, women’s status, economic development and sustainable housing. Secure land rights give people a reason to invest in their land, improving agricultural production and environmental stewardship. It also reduces urban migration and creates political stability.

These struggles for a secure place to live aren’t isolated to developing countries – they happen right here in Seattle. For a family of refugees from Ethiopia, their recent escape to the U.S. was a dream come true. But the only apartment they could afford in Seattle was cramped and infested by ants. The house was filled with mold, and the plumbing and electricity did not work so the family lacked heat. When they applied for help from Habitat for Humanity, they were initially turned down.

Although Habitat for Humanity strives to serve as many families as possible, it is a constant challenge to secure enough land in Seattle for all needy families. Fortunately, the city of Seattle donated property and the family now lives in a simple home with a 30-year, affordable mortgage.

In the Sept. 29 issue of Newsweek, one week before World Habitat Day, editor Fareed Zakaria described land rights as one of the five most important things that can help solve our world’s problems. The efforts of local organizations such as Habitat for Humanity, RDI, Agros, World Vision and others demonstrates Seattle’s role as a global leader in innovative solutions to some of our world’s greatest issues, and shows the power of land rights and shelter in creating a safer, more secure world.

Tim Hanstad is president and CEO of the Rural Development Institute (RDI); Greg Rake is president of Agros International; Marty Kooistra is CEO of the Seattle/South King County Habitat for Humanity.

Today Agros received the incredible honor of being one of 22 award recipients at the 2008 World Bank Development Marketplace competition. Program Director Laurie Werner and Agros Mexico Director Sergio Sanchez were on hand in Washington, D.C to receive the $200,000 award. As follows:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Agros International wins prestigious World Bank Development Marketplace 2008 Award
$200,000 grant will benefit indigenous rural families in Chiapas, Mexico

SEATTLE, WA – An innovative Agros International proposal to create two sustainable farming communities in Chiapas, Mexico was one of 22 award winners at the 2008 World Bank Development Marketplace competition.

Out of 1,800 applicants and 100 finalists, the Agros International project was awarded $200,000 in seed funds to provide long-term land loans and holistic development support to Guatemalan refugees living in Chiapas, Mexico. “Lack of access to farmable land seriously undermines the ability of these refugee families to break free from the cycle of poverty. This award will enable 60 families in two new Agros villages to work their way out of poverty,” explains Agros President, Greg Rake. “Agros is deeply honored to be one of the 22 Development Marketplace award recipients. This award will have a profound impact on the landless, poor in Chiapas, Mexico.”

The Agros development model is a uniquely holistic approach to alleviating rural poverty. By providing long-term land loans to the poor along with integrated technical services and training, entire communities are empowered to escape the devastating effects of extreme poverty.

Founded by Seattle lawyer Chi-Dooh Li in 1982, Agros International has previously won recognition for providing “lasting solutions to poverty” from an alliance of the World Bank, the UNDP, and the Inter-American Foundation. The Agros model has been implemented successfully in 37 village communities throughout Central America and Mexico, impacting over 8,500 people.

The World Bank Development Marketplace is a competitive grant program administered by the World Bank and supported by various partners that identify and fund innovative, early-stage projects with high potential for development impact. Since its inception in 1998, the Development Marketplace has awarded close to $40 million (US) to more than 1,000 projects through global, regional and country level marketplaces.

The following is a translation of an article written by Agros Guatemala Board Member Humberto Preti and published in the Guatemalan newspaper ‘Prensa Libre’:

“Last week the Agros Guatemala directors went to visit the communities that Agros supports in Barillas, Huehuetenango. After traveling through the beautiful peaks of Los Cuchumantes, we arrived (over torturous, difficult roads) at our destination and were surprised to see the inhabitants of these communities truly involved and working with a spirit of betterment. The men and women there are developing an aptitude for entrepreneurship.

It’s clear just how important the organization’s support has been for them. They are working hard by themselves, taking initiative and participating in projects that go above and beyond the aid that they have been given. Pascual particularly impressed us. In spite of his lack of education, he was able to build a drier for his coffee, which he made entirely by himself by copying the drawings that he saw in a manual. There are other community members developing their own businesses and implementing projects as well, some on their own and others in a communal fashion. The communal projects include a tilapia tank for raising fish, important buildings for the community such as schools, and sewing rooms to keep the machines in (some of which were acquired through loans).

Agros has been providing women with loans in the form of a community-run bank, which they have already taken to the next level by receiving training to be able to process their own loans. It’s admirable to see that no one has been defaulting on the loans ‘ve received and that some women are already moving on to their third loan.

It was our turn during the visit to one of the communities to give the land titles to everyone there who had repaid their land loans (in the Agros Guatemala village “El Edén”). Since the Agros model isn’t about giving everything away for free, it generates hard work and commitment among the villagers. This desire to improve is visible in the Canjobal communities as much as it is in the Ixil triangle – the importance that they are giving to their children’s education, their desire to get trained in different skills. These things have been made possible with the help of Guatemalan organizations such as INTECAP (a training program developed by the Industry Council of Guatemala) and ANACAFE (Guatemalan Association of Coffee Growers), as well as other organizations like Agros International, Generalitat Valenciana (Spanish Municipal Organization), USAID (US Agency for International Development) and other international organizations that have dedicated themselves to helping the poor by investing in productive projects.

In some communities where there are water resources, the families are already thinking of building their own hydroelectric system. Although there are already electricity networks in nearby, the villagers are not able to pay the excessive charges due to our dependence on hydrocarbons.

We then went to see La Providencia, the new farm that benefits one hundred families, and saw how there exists in each family member a desire to begin work on various projects and the construction of their homes. Nobody was thinking about the past, or about vengeance; their minds were on the future and in the wellbeing of their families in spite of having been among the communities most affected by the useless armed conflict that had plunged them into misery for many years. They are making gigantic steps. The families are already receiving information about birth control and are accepting it with interest.

The satisfaction of seeing these groups that are moving ahead, with clear visions, was my Christmas gift.

This following is an article written by Alfred Kaltschmitt and published yesterday in Prensa Libre, an independent newspaper in Guatemala.

Alfred Kaltschmitt was one of the founding members of Fundación Agros Guatemala, serving as the first Chair of the Board of Directors. The spanish version of this article can be found by clicking here.

Between the Clouds of the Ixil

We left early on a Friday; we took the car because of copious rain and mist that surrounded the capital city since the night before. Since it was impossible to fly to the Ixil, plan B was to take a four-wheel drive in case we could not fly to the airstrip in Ajt Tumbal, in Nebaj.

We started driving and took the highway headed west going to Quiché, through Chichicastenango, then Sacapulas, crossing the bridge over Río Negro, and then towards the top of the cordillera of Los Chutumatanes, through Cunén.  Almost daily, in the afternoon, the clouds make a date to dance upon the backs of these impressive and enormous thousand-year-old mountains.

The paved highway has transformed the whole region of the Ixil, an area that has experienced significant isolation due to distance and difficult access. The inhabitants of the Ixil region, which is comprised of the Nebaj, Cotzal and Chajul municipalities, are now connected to the exterior world.

I was overwhelmed by many memories — memories stretching back almost a quarter of a century. I thought back to the time when we first started Agros – an NGO whose vision was, is, and will continue to be, to help create new ways of development for the indigenous communities that are in most need. In those days, I had to travel by a slim dirt road filled with holes and ponds. This adventure could last up to 14 hours, depending on the conditions of the road. Driving could be interrupted by a landslide or other obstacles. The whole region of Ixil was isolated, and the war kept it even more depressed.

This time, however, in less than four hours we arrived to the top of the beautiful valley that surrounds Nebaj. I remembered the first time that my beloved friend Mario Morales and I stopped to contemplate the scenic beauty of the Ixil. That was almost 25 years ago, when we were young and believed that it is not by sword or armies that poverty is conquered, but through love and solidarity for your neighbor, and the message found in the example of the greatest politician – Jesus Christ.

How can I describe in a few words the intensity of what my fellow Agros Guatemala Board members and I lived these past three days? I still feel a sense of pride over seeing the first class of carpenters graduate from the new Agros Training Center in Nebaj. I can already envision the future for the Training Center of Nebaj… of how advanced it will be in the construction of training workspaces, computer laboratories, staff and student housing, and in teaching intensive agriculture skills! This center will also provide training in agriculture, eco-tourism, and general contractor skills.

We visited seven of the 22 villages that Agros has developed in Guatemala over the past years: La Esperanza, Belén, Caxijay, Xeucalvitz, Trapichitos, Batzchacolá, and Sumalito. We have also built dirt roads leading to three of these village -  an enormous achievement given their location, as there are steep drop-offs and deep valleys everywhere in this area.

Climbing and descending over four thousand feet of elevation, and crossing up to three different micro-climates, we finally got to visit the projects and talk to the grateful Agros villagers. Their lives and their children’s lives have been transformed by having access to the simple dignity of a home, potable water, schools, health, and professional training. We also attended a land title ceremony in the village of Belén. I can still see the face of Pedro Raymundo, bursting with happiness as he received his land property title.

As we were leaving a fellow Board member asked, “please pass me a tissue.” Tears had filled his eyes.

Lennart Bage, President of the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), recently published an article on the essential elements needed to fight poverty in a lasting, sustainable way. His findings both affirm and dovetail with our own development model here at Agros, where we have also found that alleviating rural poverty requires an integrated, holistic, and sustainable approach.

Here are a few quotes from his article, and a link to the entire piece:

“Investments in agriculture can transform economies and pay high dividends in terms of quality of life and dignity for poor rural people.

Many of those left behind are rural people – the small farmers, landless workers, herders, fisherfolk and artisans who depend on agriculture and related activities to survive. Seventy-five per cent of the world’s extremely poor people live in the rural areas of developing countries – over 800 million women, children and men. One-quarter have no secure access to land. In many areas, indigenous peoples and ethnic minorities make up a disproportionate number of the rural poor, and in all areas women are the most vulnerable and marginalised.

Agricultural investments drive economic growth
Investments in agriculture can transform economies and pay high dividends in terms of quality of life and dignity for poor rural people. They can drive broader economic growth, setting the stage for long-term sustainable development. Indeed, investments in agriculture are more effective in raising people out of poverty than investments in any other sector.

…these solutions must be rooted in the aspirations and priorities of poor people themselves… poor rural people tell us that secure access to land, water and other natural resources is one of their highest priorities. In fact, studies show that inequitable distribution and lack of access to land are often the driving forces behind poverty and hunger, as well as the roots of armed conflict and civil war.”

Click here to read more of President Bage’s excellent article.

Writing from Nicaragua and just read the article published in yesterday’s (March 6) Seattle PI. Many thanks to PI reporter Tom Paulson – he truly did an exceptional job working to understand what Agros is doing not only in Nicaragua, but all throughout Central America.  Click here for a direct link, or read below:

Seattle group helping the poor buy land in Nicaragua
280-acre ‘El Eden’ supports 29 families

Tuesday, March 6, 2007

By TOM PAULSON
P-I REPORTER

EDITOR’S NOTE: For decades, Seattle and the Northwest have had connections with Nicaragua in health care, economic development and political activism. During the civil war in the 1980s, many in Seattle and the Northwest became involved in the Sandinista-Contra struggle.

Some assistance projects and relationships created by those turbulent times have persisted. Meanwhile, newer bridges between the Northwest and Nicaragua are being built.

The Seattle P-I recently visited a handful of projects that represent the Northwest’s continuing connection to the poorest nation in Central America.

NEAR MATAGALPA, Nicaragua — The inequitable ownership of land has been at the root of many of Nicaragua’s conflicts. Today, a little-known organization started by a Seattle attorney and community activist is working to reduce this inequity by helping the poorest of the poor buy land in these lush green hills.

“We are planting maracuya (passion fruit) as part of our plan to diversify crops,” said farmer Leandro Hernandez, speaking with obvious pride while walking across a few acres of land to which he and his campesino family one day hope to hold title.

The land, for now, is owned by a Seattle non-profit organization called Agros International. Created in 1982 by Chi-Dooh “Skip” Li, a Seattle attorney, Agros bought this land for $170,000 and is selling it back to poor families who agree to make it productive.
Across the field, higher up on a hillside, Hernandez pointed to rows of tomato and jalapeno plants, as well as to the water tank they had built for irrigation. Elsewhere in this new 280-acre community, dubbed El Eden, that he and 29 other poor families recently have settled are crops of corn, avocado, beans, plantains, watermelon and coffee, some of which is headed for Camano Island Coffee Roasters.

“We will wait until the rains come, in May, to plant some of them,” Hernandez said, explaining that the idea is to always have some produce to sell in the market, no matter what the season.

This is the first piece of land he — or anyone in his family — has ever owned and he is determined to make it a success.

“Before this, I had to rent a place for my family to live and work at a factory (farm) where I was paid 50 cordobas (less than $3) a day,” he said.

With this land from Agros, he said, he makes only a little bit more money every day selling his produce. But he doesn’t have to pay rent or buy food, so he is able to save money.

“I can send my children to school now,” Hernandez said.

He and the other families in El Eden farm and live off the land as a sort of loan from Agros. Each family is required to pay Agros an average of $300 every year toward the purchase of the land. In less than a decade, if all goes well, the land will be theirs.

“We want to show them that they can take care of themselves and make progress on their own initiative, rather than to expect charity,” said Kira Lopez, a financial manager at the Agros office in Managua.

“We have been working with this community for about 16 months,” said Mario Gaitan, an agronomist and executive director of the Agros programs in Nicaragua. Gaitan and his colleagues help the farmers develop a master agricultural plan aimed at making the best use of the soil, water resources and local market demand.

“Before the Sandinistas, all the land in Nicaragua was owned by the big producers,” Gaitan said.

After the revolution toppled the dictator Anastasio Somoza (who alone owned a huge chunk of the country), Gaitan said, the Sandinistas seized much of the land to redistribute it among the people. They formed farming collectives, but didn’t give individuals ownership of land. There wasn’t much done with legal title transfer. Many of the poor who received the land weren’t trained sufficiently to take over the large farms.
The Sandinista plan largely imploded, leading to decay in the agricultural sector and increasing poverty. When conservatives regained power in 1990, their solution was to return the land to big landowners — which threw even more peasants deeper into poverty.

“Land reform was failing,” Li said.

When a friend and classmate from the University of Washington law school was killed in an El Salvador hotel while volunteering to work on land reform there, Li felt prompted to take up the cause.

“I didn’t want to get involved in the politics, but I wanted to do something,” said Li, who occasionally writes as a community columnist for the Seattle P-I editorial page.

After a visiting minister from Argentina spoke at his church suggesting individuals could buy land directly and give it to the poor, he started Agros to do that. Though its impetus was faith-based, Agros has no religious litmus test for deciding which families to help.

“We started in Guatemala and moved into Nicaragua in the mid-1990s,” Li said.

The organization has grown very quietly, he said, into a sizable operation that is expected to reach $4 million in income by June with 30 sponsored communities throughout Latin America.

Some of the coffee beans grown by Hernandez and his neighbors in this mountain village are already showing up in Seattle cups.

“I really like what Agros is doing,” said Jeff Ericson, owner of Camano Island Coffee Roasters. The company, which sells organic, shade-grown, freely traded beans, buys them from Agros-sponsored farmers in Nicaragua.

“This is not your typical charity at the trough,” Ericson said. “This is about creating sustainable businesses and communities.”

After examining Hernandez’ jalapeno crop and some coffee plants that had recently been whacked by a tornado, Gaitan wandered back down into the center of the village. Workers were struggling to irrigate a field of young plantains effectively as the water flowed too fast here, backed up there or headed in the wrong direction.

Gaitan grabbed a hoe, began digging and deftly demonstrated how a different configuration of the ditch path allowed for better, more efficient flow. He handed back the hoe and the men went to work.

“We can help here and there,” Gaitan said. “But it will be up to them for it to succeed.”

P-I reporter Tom Paulson can be reached at 206-448-8318 or tompaulson@seattlepi.com.
© 1998-2007 Seattle Post-Intelligencer

Throughout the world it is the poor who are the most vulnerable, and who suffer the most in the wake of natural disaster, famine, and war. There is a legacy of loss, suffering, and grief that continues to this day in the hearts of so many in Central America… people who lost children, parents, brothers and sisters in the civil wars that raged throughout the 70’s, 80’s, and 90’s. Many of these families and individuals now live in Agros villages, where they are given new opportunity and hope to rebuild the connections that were destroyed not that many years ago.

We are committed to helping villagers create a new legacy… of hope. And in the aftermath of what these extraordinary people have gone through, hope – real hope – is not easy or simple or cheap. Hope requires courage, and in Guatemala – the people themselves are leading the way in a tough, difficult path towards national closure. The following recent news article focuses on the people of the Ixil, a region in Guatemala that is central to several Agros villages.

Forensic experts look for remains of the 200,000 killed in 36-year civil war.
By N.C. Aizenman
The Washington Post

November 8, 2006
NEBAJ, Guatemala

Spurred by a surge of requests from victims’ families this year, dozens of forensic anthropologists have been fanning out across the countryside to search for remains of the 200,000 people — most of them Mayan Indian civilians — who were killed or abducted during the 36-year conflict.

Many were massacred by military forces and dumped into mass graves. Others were buried hurriedly in unmarked locations by relatives anxious to avoid rampaging troops.

About 40,000 victims disappeared after being seized by government operatives.

Nearly every day brings another grisly discovery: skulls of toddlers with gunshots to the head; corpses of young men whose necks are still looped with the garrotes used to strangle them.

Nearly every week brings another funeral crowded with weeping relatives.

In a cavernous, damp warehouse in the capital, Guatemala City, investigators wearing protective masks and surgical gloves comb through piles of mildewed documents from a recently discovered secret police
archive, hunting for clues to the fate of the disappeared.

The effort is not the first investigation of wartime atrocities since peace accords ended the conflict in 1996. But its scope and pace are unusual in a country where those responsible have enjoyed near impunity.

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