Agros Blog

I was recently able to spend time in San Jose — one of our newest Agros villages located in the Matagalpa region of Nicaragua. It was an incredible experience. The last time I was with these families (just over a year ago) they were landless and living on approx $2 per family per day. This averages out to about $.25 a day per person. They were growing single-season subsistence crops on unproductive, rented land. With no irrigation and poor housing structures they were at the mercy of unpredictable weather. They were struggling with hunger, health problems, lack of access to clean water, no work or food security, and a pervasive sense of despair.

Today — one year after starting this new Agros village — these same families invited us to a banquet… a feast of chicken, corn, and other food produced on their Agros farm. It was a feast!

Here is what they’ve accomplished over the last year:

• Temporary houses (with latrines) have been built
• An irrigation system with piped water has been established
• The families are planting 8 different crops year-round during three unique growing seasons
• Proceeds from a recent tomato harvest have been invested into cattle worth more than $6,000
• They are storing the surplus of recent corn production, waiting until the prices go up so that they can make additional profit
• 10,000 coffee plant seedlings will soon be planted in order to increase coffee production
• They took out an additional loan from Agros and built a coffee processing machine and a pump
• Everyone is involved in community development activities, the women are actively involved in leadership, and children now have access to both preschool and elementary school

WoW!!!! Talk about impressive! And they did all of this while also being impacted by Hurricane Felix, which hit in September of 2007. I was (and am) blown away. What a story!!!

These families are representative of hard-working Agros families across Central America and Mexico. They are a great example of how the Agros model enables the poor to develop assets, create security, and slowly but surely work their way out of poverty.

This is Land, Hope, and Life at work! Here are a few photos from this incredible Agros village: