Agros Blog

Near Comí­tan, Chiapas Mexico.

Twelve of us have come to visit them, these people who have asked to be part of a new Agros village. We have been traveling along a secondary road here in Chiapas, Mexico, near the Guatemalan border. The road is dotted with small plots and shacks, most of which are rented for 50% of the income generated by any produce grown. That’s the life here. The glimpses that we have along the road convince us that it’s not much of a living. Most of these people make less than $1 a day.

Agros staff have been working with several groups of people in this region for almost a year, teaching values-based planning, listening to the dreams that they have for the future, explaining to them how Agros works. We are going to visit one of these groups. They know that, if they are selected and agree to it, they will qualify to enter a long-term program to obtain land that they will eventually own themselves, because they will have purchased it with their work. They will receive subsidized credit and for the first time, have food security, as they seek to farm, not just for a living, but for a future.

The staff leads us down a dirt road, to a small area that this group has carved out as a makeshift community center. There is a table around which have been set some plastic chairs, a rough semicircle. We are urged to sit down. Water is fetched, so we can wash our hands. A young woman brings us bottled orange soda and packaged cookies. Some of us crack open the sodas and take a sip. We say that we’ve really come to listen to their story.

The men gather first. They stand opposite us, completing the circle. After them and eventually standing behind them, the women and children trickle in, perhaps 20 people in all.

Sergio asks us to introduce ourselves, explaining that he will toss a ball to the first person, who will pass on the ball to the next one. The first person is one of the women in our group. After the third person, it becomes clear that the women in our group are tossing the ball to each other first, before the men get a chance to speak. There is laughter all around the circle. We’ve broken the ice.

Then it is their turn. Their leader, Pablo Gustavo, is a confident man who begins by describing who they are. Most of them are Guatemalan refugees who settled in Mexico after fleeing the civil wars in their own country. This group is made up of people from five different tribes, each with their own language: Chuj, mam, mimam, acateco, and kanjobal. Most of the men speak Spanish as a second language; they have to, in order to work as hired hands. There are some 20 families in this group, with about 80 children. They have banded together for survival, and their faces show how necessary that is.

“We came here because in Mexico, there is more support for us,” Pablo explains. “And the government here helps us. But we are separate. For us to grow stronger, we need to get land together. The only hope we have is with Agros. We hope to get your support.”

Other men hold the ball and say similar things. We have just come to hear their stories; we’ll have no influence on the selection, but they can’t know that. The Agros Mexico staff will have to make the hard decisions, based on what the people have shown them over a year of working together as a group.

We ask to hear from some of the women. Willingness to empower women is another vital sign of a potential Agros group: we know that women do best with both credit and savings, basic building blocks of the Agros model. They save 4-5 times what a man will save, and are most likely to use the savings for child welfare and education.

Katarina, the eldest woman there, asks for the ball. She has five children. The two-year-old boy at Katarina’s skirts is one of her grandchildren. “We ate once a day in Guatemala,” she says, “I left Guatemala not for myself, but so that my children would not be killed, because (what was happening in Guatemala) was not their fault.” We ask what her hopes are for her children’s future. “My hopes are for my sons and their families, that they can make a living off the land.” It seems that we are holding that hope in our hands.

Mechora has to be coached forward to speak, and our interpreter has to lean over to hear her quiet voice: she has 14 children, she says. Then she remembers: it’s 15. The immediate response from the women in our group does not have to be translated: “Ai-yai-yai!” Everyone laughs, including Mechora, who covers her mouth.

The eldest son is 25 years old and in the United States, likely as an illegal immigrant, but no one asks. It’s a moot point anyway. Since the fiscal crisis of 2008, the remittances from Mexicans employed as day laborers in the States have dropped sharply. Illegal work in the US isn’t the solution it used to be, and it never breaks the cycle of poverty.

We coax stories out of a few more women and then it’s time to go. Someone points out that we haven’t touched any of the cookies. “Take them with you,” they urge. We glance at the table. The pile is likely worth a half-day’s wages. They won’t let us leave without taking two packages.

As we drive away in the van, I ask Julio César what the staff is looking for. “You don’t have to have experience in cooperative work to be successful in an Agros village,” he replies, “but you have to have the skills and the motivation to do so. Between this group and the two others, we will find enough families to make up the 6th Agros village in Mexico.”

The World Bank has given seed money for Mexico #6, but it’s about 25% of what Agros needs to complete the village. Others have given as well, but we’re not at full funding yet, and the Agros International board requires five years of full funding in order to approve a new village.

Breaking the cycle of poverty requires a long-term commitment from both the families and the Agros staff. The people will be selected, but before they can select land, they will have to wait until Agros has the resources. The last time I looked, we needed over $300,000 before we can give the Agros Mexico staff the go-ahead to begin the search for land.

That night, with many things going through my head, I can only hear Katarina’s final remark: “Sin la tierra, no tenemos nada.” Without land, we have nothing.

It wasn’t a plea. It was a simple and accurate assessment.