There are people who do not have the chance to own even a portable radio,
But they have refrigerator, television, stereo system;
that they no longer have is the forest and the water we had in the past.
But one day the TV, the fridge and the stereo will not turn into benefits for future generations.So thinks one of the Latin American peasants met in years of commitment to the environment and poverty reduction.
Small ecological producers of the Central American countries - Nicaragua, El Salvador, Honduras - with the support of RETE are organizing to promote agroecology. Agroecology is based on permaculture, on the harmony between nature and man, on a holistic vision that considers the whole territory, plant and animal species, including humans and microbiology as a unique ecosystem; it promotes organic farming, the recovery of ancestral knowledge, the preservation of Pachamama, the nourishment of the earth, the enhancement of insects for environmental balance and the protection of water sources.
Nicaragua, Honduras and El Salvador are among the poorest countries in Latin America, and large sections of the population are suffering from malnutrition, especially in the countryside. The policies of recent years have promoted a model characterized by an unreasonable exploitation of resources, unsuitable land use, deforestation, erosion, misuse of chemicals products. In poor rural areas the peasants fail to improve their diet and their living conditions. Agroecology instead promotes environmental conservation and sustainable food production, with the capacity to increase resistance to environmental degradation and reduce biodiversity loss. The project promotes the organized movements of small agro-ecological producers of Nicaragua, Honduras and El Salvador, and their participation in the institutional spaces where are defined and enforced food security policies at local and national level, and strengthen the capacities of these organizations to draw and implement policies related to organic farming and agro-ecology.
The project involves nearly twenty thousand agroecological and organic producers in the three countries, including young, women and indigenous farmers. The project, in collaboration with leading universities in Central America, puts in place measures to disseminate and scientific legitimate agroecological models, offer training and technical assistance to the producers for the dissemination of agro-ecological model and campaigns to consumers in alliance with their associations in three countries.
At the bottom of the page, it's possible to download a research paper about the project.
