Top 20 Countdown #10: Connecting Farmers to Markets

Small farmers worldwide have a hard row to hoe…literally.  Most do all their farming by hand without the use of sophisticated machinery, tractors, and other modern technology.  To clear their fields the whole family goes out and with the use of a beaten-down horse or, if they're lucky, an ox…they pull rocks out of the ground and move them.  Smaller rocks are removed and carried off by their own hands.

They plow with animals…really fortunate ones have a team of oxen.  They plant by hand, weed by hand, nurture by hand, and harvest by hand.  “What are the returns on such hard labor?” you may ask.  Very little…which is why certifying their crops as organic (many times they can’t afford the costly fertilizers and pesticides anyway) and helping them sell cash crops is extremely important.

For example, Nicaragua does not have markets for an abundance of good sesame grown here.  The United States does.  Sesame grows easily here and is usually a stable cash crop for farmers and they use that money to buy what they cannot grow…like shoes, clothes, medicine, electricity and cement.

Over the years we, together with the organic agriculture cooperative, COPROEXNIC, have tried to expand to other organic crops that grow easily here:  soy beans, black beans, cashews, mung beans, honey, and dragon fruit, but the ones most stable are sesame, cotton and coffee.  We have exported more than 3 million pounds of sesame (mostly organic, COPROEXNIC is the largest sesame exporter in Nicaragua), 460,000 pounds of organic cotton,  and 290,000 pounds of organic coffee. 

We have been expanding into organic peanuts, which grows well here but peanuts are fickle little things.  They get a fungus easily if they are not processed correctly, stored correctly and shipped in a timely fashion.  Yet peanuts grow easily here and are a great rotation crop to fill the soil with nitrogen.  Until recently, exporting peanuts was prohibitive because there were huge duties on the crops coming into the U.S. due to our peanut president, Carter.

The door to the States is open again.  With our first huge crop, we learned the hard way of just how fickle peanuts are…the organic agriculture cooperative lost most of that first crop of peanuts...around 4 million pounds worth in 2013 due to the processor and the shipping lines.  That crop should have made COPROEXNIC financially stable but instead they went into the red…BUT the farmers all got paid.  

In time, we want in time to be able to process more products here and keep the money in Nicaragua…making peanut butter, tahini, dark sesame oil, etc., but this is cost prohibitive right now, so we export raw goods.

 Future projects:
•   Establish more secure sources of low interest credit for small farmers to plant & for post-harvest crop collection & processing...if you know of any, please connect us!

 -Kathleen

Counting down to #GivingTuesday on December 2nd, we’re highlighting the CDCA’s accomplishments over our 20 years in Nicaragua. Follow our countdown in this blog, on Facebook and Twitter. Help us keep doing more by giving $20. Our goal is to raise $20,000.

Top 20 Countdown: #11 Clean Water

Can you imagine how important clean water is to the health of a community?  We take clean water for granted… we routinely go to kitchen, grab a glass, and turn on the faucet and never think twice.

Can you imagine how important having a way to dispose of human waste is to the health of a community?  We also take the luxury of a bathroom for granted; most homes in the U.S. have at least two bathrooms.

In 1994 when we moved to Nicaragua, the neighborhood down the road from us, Roberto Clemente, was made of shacks… thrown together homes of scrap material. No water flowing to each home and no latrines.  Many families were literally defecating in plastic bags and throwing them into the dirt road because they also did not have a shovel or a spade. 


In the time between Thanksgiving and mid-January our first year, they suffered the loss of five babies… five infants in this small community died from lack of clean water and proper sanitation.  The community asked us for water and latrines.  Through the Lutheran World Relief we received a grant that provided the materials to run one faucet of piped clean water to each home and materials to dig and build a latrine for each household.  The community did all the labor.

What a celebration when the water was turned on!!!  We had piñatas, music, and speeches… lots of speeches… and only one (though one too many) baby died in the following nine months!

In the next few years we were able to provide water to two other communities, Cuatro de Abril and Los Andes… both communities were made of people who were dirt poor…literally living with dirt floors, unsanitary conditions due to lack of water and soap, and some children even ate dirt because they were hungry.  Just having water meant vegetable plants could be watered, fewer parasites in the kids’ bellies, bathing was easier, and keeping the home environment clean, as all Nicaraguans struggle to do, was easier.


Working with engineers from Bucknell University, the El Porvenir coffee cooperative has had water flowing into a large tank on the top of their mountain since 2009.  This community had a well for years at the bottom of the mountain, but all water had to be transported via tractor up the steep incline to where most of the folks actually live.In the dry season each person was allocated 2 gallons of water a day for all their needs.  Our medical volunteers who went to the community would see case after case of urinary tract infections that mostly could be prevented by drinking more water.

None of these communities are wasteful of their water but their health and standard of living shoot way up when water is available.  Next time you turn on your tap, give thanks on just how fortunate you are for that gush of goodness.Future Projects:
•    We are working with the local Ciudad Sandino Rotary Club and Rotary Clubs in Santa Barbara, CA, to bring potable water to two rural communities in Ciudad Sandino... awaiting funding
 -Kathleen

Counting down to #GivingTuesday on December 2nd, we’re highlighting the CDCA’s accomplishments over our 20 years in Nicaragua. Follow our countdown in this blog, on Facebook and Twitter. Help us keep doing more by giving $20. Our goal is to raise $20,000.

Top 20 Countdown: #12: Sesame Processing Plant

Our first agriculture project was organic sesame.  Mike began learning about it before we even moved to Nicaragua from Jeremy Thaler of Once Again Nut Butter.

Sesame grows well in Nicaragua, in fact, Nicaragua’s sesame is one of the best in the world.  Our first crop was with a dairy cooperative that planted 96 acres.

Mike and César, now our projects director, would go out into the fields plowed by oxen and planted by hand.  They would encourage the farmers, stomp around in the field, and mainly pretended they knew what they were doing! 

Whether they actually did or not, the farmers really did know what they were doing, and the stalks came up, tiny white flowers popped out, and then the pods grew from the flowers… pods that looked like small okra pods. At harvest, the stalks were pulled up by hand and placed in sheaves to dry.  After the drying time was over… thankfully no rain during that time… tarps were laid down and farmers threshed the stalks to get the pods to open and those itty, bitty seeds fell into the tarp.  THEN they would take bowls full and raise them high and slowly pour the seeds back onto the tarp letting the chaff be blown away in the wind.

Growing organic sesame as small farmers is hard work… extremely labor intensive but at least getting an organic price helps the farmers get ahead unless like that first year….

When it came time to process the seeds,the processors held the sesame hostage, telling Mike and César that they wouldn't process it unless they sold the sesame to the plant as conventional (prices were good that year, and the processors wanted the profit for themselves)... Like the chaff, the farmers got left in the wind.

Processing sesame has been a hit or miss prospect since that first crop:  In 1996 we helped the processing plant obtain certification for organics. In 2000, the only plant in Nicaragua closed, and in 2001 we were almost able to obtain the lease for the plant but many Nicaraguan banks collapsed and our lease deal got lost in the mess. Farmers were stuck and had to start shipping their sesame out of the country for processing.

So, for the next two years, many farmers just had their seeds pressed into oil to go into body products, which was a great loss to the farmers.

Last year, the processor running the Nicaraguan plant (back in operation) did not process the seeds correctly and the organic agriculture cooperative, COPROEXNIC, suffered losses in a year when their sesame was abundant.

Improvements to the plant in process!

So we, together with COPROEXNIC, decided enough was enough.  If farmers are going to get the prices they deserve, then someone who cares about the farmers needs to run the sesame processing plant.  After long negotiations with the government, which holds title to the plant, COPROEXNIC obtained a one year lease on the plant.

This year has been busy hiring staff… 27 people work there now… fixing all the broken machinery the previous processor left broken, getting electricity, buying parts that were taken, painting, cleaning, bringing the plant up to global standards, and looking for funding.

With someone who cares running the plant, it ensures farmers get fair prices as well as creating jobs for 27 people now, and 40 people when it is running at maximum capacity.


Future Projects:
•    Get electricity at full power in the plant… in process
•    Obtain a long-term lease from the government… in process 

-Kathleen

Counting down to #GivingTuesday on December 2nd, we’re highlighting the CDCA’s accomplishments over our 20 years in Nicaragua. Follow our countdown in this blog, on Facebook and Twitter. Help us keep doing more by giving $20. Our goal is to raise $20,000.

Top 20 Countdown: #13 Educating Through Speaking Tours

Did you get to know our work when you heard one of us speak?  Many of you have gotten to know the JHC-CDCA through our speaking tours in the United States and throughout other nations.  Sarah goes to speak about the work of the CDCA each spring for about two months, Pat and Kathy for years went for two months each fall, and Becca speaks every other year, and together with Mike and César speaks at organics conferences or as keynote speakers in universities.

  

These speaking tours are phenomenally labor intensive.   

Months before the tours, they spend hour after hour setting up the trip.  We all help with the power point presentations and the brochures.  Sarah shops for crafts from local artists to sell as fundraisers and support the artists.  Everyone remaining in Nicaragua covers for them while they are away.  Before walking out the door they leave documents titled, for example, “Kathy’s brain” so we who are remaining will not get stuck looking for documents or files while that person is gone.

While they are gone, they drive thousands of miles.  They stay in people’s homes.  They carry crafts in and out of our van and set up in churches, universities, meetings, people’s homes and talk and talk.

Sarah and her daughter, Jessica, went on the first speaking tour in April 1995.  It was so successful we expanded it… and all of us have participated through the years.

Among us all we have spoken in 37 of the 50 states… most of these we come back to each year or every other year.  We have spoken in 10 different countries including Taiwan…the furthest!   Becca and Paul have spoken several times in Ireland, Paul’s home, and Northern Ireland.  As a result we have a small base of support from Ireland. 
 
On the speaking tours we schedule time to visit family and friends along the way.  Many people who hosted us over the years started out as supportive strangers and have become good friends.  When we come home, we are tired, glad to be home, and always a little fatter from all the wonderful food that people prepare for us while we are gone.

Speaking tours have raised money for the work as well as putting images of the CDCA's work in people’s minds, but they also serve to put faces on the poor of Nicaragua.  I remember as a child when missionaries would come to our church and talk about how other people lived.  It opened my eyes to the world and gave me new perspectives on my own reality.  We trust this is also what happens occasionally on our speaking tours.

Future Projects 

• As we expand our base we need a van in the Northwest of the U.S. and a new van on the east coast… our current one is very old… awaiting funding.

• We always need people to invite us to speak and to host us... awaiting you!  Contact us.
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• Counting down to #GivingTuesday on December 2nd, we’re highlighting the CDCA’s accomplishments over our 20 years in Nicaragua. Follow our countdown in this blog, on Facebook and Twitter. Help us keep doing more by giving $20. Our goal is to raise $20,000.  
•  

Top 20 Countdown: #14 Cotton Gin

Creating jobs in Nicaragua, where under- and unemployment is almost 50%, is crucial.  Until recently, Nicaragua has had an agriculture-based economy.  Although agriculture is still strong (31% of the labor force), industrial jobs now make up 18%, with service jobs making up over 50% of the workers who have jobs… all are extremely low paying jobs.  The CDCA continues to strive to add value to agriculture in order to increase the pay small farmers take home for their hard work and also to create industrial jobs at the same time.

One our first attempts to add value was a cotton gin.   In 2007, our new organic cotton project was approved for a grant to be allocated over 3 years to provide capital for planting and harvesting organic cotton; purchase a truck and fuel; and help fund the ginning and baling of the cotton.  At that time, the Nicaraguan government had a gin but no baler.  We bought a baler, but then could not afford to give the office running the gin $18,000 to install the electricity for the baler… so…. 

Photo by Ben Stechschulte

We went looking for funds to purchase our own gin and install it.  We renovated the former water filter space and bought a gin in 2008… while all 60,000 pounds of cotton from the first harvest were stored, stuffed -- literally -- into an unoccupied house, which we found out later had a leaky roof!   The gin project was a nail-biter during the months it took to get it up and running before all the organic cotton was ruined.

The ginning machinery arrived in an unusable jumble, not at all as-advertised, yet another example of bad machinery being passed off on poor people because when the sellers/brokers are in other countries, there is little or no recourse.

What happened to the 3 year organic cotton grant?  Remember the economic crash of 2008?  Money from that foundation dried up and we have struggled to keep the organic cotton project going.

Photo by Ben Stechschulte

In the end, we did get it up and running!  And it has been a success in that the cotton gin still seasonally operates every year.  Ginning and baling cotton provides full-time work with benefits but only for several months each year to 25 people.  They are grateful for the work, but it is a shame that we don't have enough organic cotton for production to run 2 or even 3 shifts.

Although we have grown organic cotton successfully for 8 years, we have never been able to provide enough credits to farmers to increase production enough to run the cotton gin year-round… though with your help, we keep trying.  

Future projects: 

• Increase organic cotton production... awaiting financing for credits to plant more organic cotton acreage.

• Cotton gins make their money off of the seed; currently all our seed not used for planting the following year is practically given away as cattle feed. We want to purchase a de-linter which would make it possible to press excess seed for oil to make biodiesel and export leftover cake as organic cattle feed, all of which would help the gin become a viable business... awaiting financing for de-linter.
  
  
  

Counting down to #GivingTuesday on December 2nd, we’re highlighting the CDCA’s accomplishments over our 20 years in Nicaragua. Follow our countdown in this blog, on Facebook and Twitter. Help us keep doing more by giving $20. Our goal is to raise $20,000.   

-- Kathleen