By German Reyes | Puerto Lempira (Honduras) (EFE).- Cultivating the land is not easy in Gracias a Dios, a swampy region on the Caribbean coast of Honduras, where the great natural wealth contrasts with the difficult conditions and poverty of its inhabitants. Overcoming these difficulties, indigenous communities in the area seek to turn the situation around by appealing to sustainable agriculture, artisanal fishing and ancestral practices.
Rosa Haylock Lemoth, 65, is one of the leaders of a group of Miskito indigenous women in Palkaka, a town of about 900 inhabitants in Gracias a Dios, where in the morning and afternoon shifts, the second time to do irrigation, they attend to the family garden, yes, without leaving other household chores.
“Before we had another initiative, but we didn’t see results like this, which is a project in which we already have production and we have harvested cucumbers, which have already earned our organization an income,” Rosa stresses to EFE, while showing her orchard, in the one that is also harvesting watermelons and pumpkins, for its own consumption and to sell the few surpluses.
The women of Palkaka grow tomatoes, chili peppers, cucumbers, pumpkins, watermelons, oranges, avocados and lemons, among other vegetables and fruits, whose seeds and farming tools and methods for using organic fertilizers, which they prepare themselves, were obtained from the Spanish NGO Ayuda en Acción.
This initiative is part of the Project Improving the Livelihoods of the Miskito Indigenous Peoples, which since 2021 has been supported by the World Bank, with financing provided by the Japan Social Development Fund and which implements Ayuda en Acción.
Action and solution to poverty
The department of Gracias a Dios, a territory largely known as the Mosquitia, of about 17,000 square kilometers and bordering Nicaragua, is the second largest in Honduras and is home to four of the country’s indigenous and Afro-descendant peoples (Tawacas, Pechs, Garifuna and Miskito).
Much of its population subsists on artisanal fishing and diving, catching lobsters in the depths of the sea, in dangerous conditions.
Despite its natural wealth, with plains, rivers, lagoons, sea and mountains, cultivating the land is not easy in this region, where the sun, in the hottest season and due to the effects of climate change, makes the thermometer rise to the 36 degrees Celsius in its lower areas.
Furthermore, much of the territory can only be reached by air or by sailing the sea and the rivers that cross it, due to its swampy conditions.
That, added to poverty, has made assistance in sustainable projects a relief for communities in the municipalities of Puerto Lempira, such as Palkaka, and Ahuas, Uzías Zúniga, head of Aid in Action in Puerto Lempira, told EFE of Thanksgiving.
Data from the World Bank confirm that the Mosquitia is an area marked by multidimensional poverty, which stands at 71.8%, above the national average of 67.2%, to which is added high food insecurity, with “43% of people lack reliable access to affordable and nutritious food.”
Tutorial and ancestral learning
Tansing is located very close to Palkaka, where another project is being carried out, which began in 2022, with the educational modality Tutorial Learning System (SAT), oriented towards sustainable agriculture and in which young and old are involved.
“It has been a very nice experience because we have learned how to take advantage of the little space there is (1.5 hectares) to plant different varieties of vegetables,” said Darwin Romero, a secondary school teacher, who stressed that the best thing is that now the beneficiaries cultivate in “orchards with organic fertilizers next to the house, with a positive multiplier effect.”
Before, what they now grow in the orchards, according to Darwin, they did on the banks of a nearby river that, when it grew, often washed away the crops, including rice, cassava and bananas, something that the inhabitants of Palkaka also suffered. .
In other cases, they lost their crops to “drought, pests, and humans,” Darwin notes.
The teacher also highlights that they have “launched a combination of ancestral activity with the new generations of Tansing, where young and old learn from each other and exchange knowledge.”
The World Bank program is promoting another agricultural project in Ahuas in which 23 men and 22 women are participating, who are currently carrying out a second phase that includes the construction of a warehouse with cement blocks, which will serve them to display their products and attend to other matters. of your organization.
Now the 45 beneficiaries, while building the galley, a task in which the women also participate, are waiting for the rains to prepare the land and start planting vegetables, fruit trees, basic grains, tubers and bananas, among other crops, said Emenelio Escalante, one of the managers of that group.
The project also includes the drilling of a well to ensure the water they will need to irrigate the crops by dripping and spraying, with which they will abandon the tedious hauling of water, in buckets, on foot, morning and afternoon, from the Plátano River, that crosses about 300 meters from his community.