Field Report Feb 5, 2021

 Feb 5, 2021  Field Report by Bob Roylance

I have spent the last few days touring some of the 202 villages that are a part of the Cahabon District.  It is hard to describe the abject poverty that is everywhere.  This is very hard to understand because these are a very bright people.  Their young people seem to have intellect and bright minds.  However, as they grow older the light goes out, and they resign themselves to their only option -- hard menial labor.  Some leave for the big city, but most stay behind and stay connected to their close-knit families.  This situation was forced upon them by the Spanish Conquistadors when the Kekchi (Maya) people retreated to these mountains to avoid the Inquisition.  In addition, the Guatemalan Government is constantly harassing them.

Every day I become more aware of the real problems and opportunities.  We originally had in mind to support the Cahabon leader's corn project -- where they gave two bags of fertilizer for each family.  There are 13,000 families in this District, and last year they only provided bags for 5,000, and were planning to move up to 8,000 this year.  They would like us to cover another 2,000 -- to make it 10,000 this year.  The leaders were under the impression that the farmers were giving enough corn back to the Cahabon corn project to fund the next crop.  This small amount of corn was also intended to provide some corn to those who were in extreme poverty.  As it turns out, it was not enough to fund the next crop, which meant it was not sustainable.

When Darwin, who is Director Agriculture, realized it would not fit our criteria he asked for a better idea.  Actually, even though on first-blush their program looked really good, I pointed out that it was actually creating a huge dependency problem, and he seemed to agree with that.  He asked me what I thought was the best way forward and I told him that we needed to provide resources to these families that would allow them to sustainably increase their cash flow.  We need to help them to establish and improve their Cacao (chocolate) and cardamon plantings, plantains, and possibly others.  They would then have the funds to improve their farming practices and they would then be able to break away from subsistence living.  These people generally know what to do, they just don't have the money to do it.  Actually, there is one thing that has really caused problems, and that is the practice of burning corn stalks and other crop residues.

I had a saying that I developed in Africa that seemed to really hit home with these people.  "If you give less to your land, it will in-turn give you less and less back.  However, if you give more to your land it will give you more and more."  Darwin said they have been harping on this problem for the last twenty years, but it has not done any good.  He is in hope that I can persuade them to do differently.  This really hit home when we tried to take some soil samples. The ground was so hard that we to get a hammer to pound the soil probe into the ground. Because of the hardness of the soil, the much rain would run off the field and be wasted.  It will take some time to bring these fields back into a reasonable production level.

We spent some today with a village that had created an Association of farmers that had come together to market their Cacao.  They were hoping that I could help them find a way to by-pass several middlemen and go direct to the final marketer.  I do have some contacts  where I might be able to find some help.  We will see.  They also wanted help on certifying their crop as "organically grown."  I can probably help them with that one.

Friday is the day the farmers bring their produce to the road so it can be picked up by local buyers.  They, in-turn, will sell it to the regional buyers, and so on, and by the time it reaches the final destination there is not much left over for the farmer.  We hope to correct that.  

The following is a farmer turning his Cacao over so it will dry faster.