SUSTAINABILITY

   Nicaragua’s population has doubled in the last 25 years. During that time, its tree cover has diminished, contributing to a scarcity of ground water. To address the problems of declining tree cover and fresh water availability, SOSTENICA and CEPRODEL have launched the “Project to Protect Sources of Water and Reforest the Farms of Clients in Nagarote”. The project strives to preserve sources of fresh water, augment species diversity on individual farms, and create a long-term financial development plan for each farm by offering free trees to rural farmers as part of their “loan package”. The idea for the project was advanced in 2008, when SOSTENICA’s Board and staff began discussing the relevance of water conservation to their mission in Nicaragua. They asked themselves what value a micro-loan to a farmer has – for purchasing more cattle, for example – if the river upon which they depend dries up before the next rainy season? The idea was then enthusiastically taken up by CEPRODEL’s top administrators and staff, who were attending an agro-ecology training sponsored by Alan Wright at Las Cañadas in Mexico. They reasoned that if the natural resources available to small farmers today disappear, a secure future is impossible regardless of how much credit is available.

    The pilot project is based in the municipality of Nagarote, a lovely town midway between Managua and León, which was chosen because of the hundreds of small streams in the region. Twenty-four CEPRODEL clients, each with water on their land, received “seedlings credit” of up to 980 hardwood and fruit tree seedlings. The clients agree to repay their “credit” over two years, by producing more seedlings, which will be used to extend the program to other rural families. As part of the project, CEPRODEL is offering agro-ecology workshops, where they impart the skills needed to seed hardwood and fruit trees, harvest the fruit, and produce organic fertilizers and insecticides. They hope to guarantee success and to provide additional income and business opportunities for the clients and their families.

   The trees will increase each farm’s crop diversity and earnings potential. Planted along the river banks, the jenízero and guanacaste trees prevent erosion with their extensive roots systems, while their canopies shade and protect the streams from evaporation. Leguminous trees integrate nitrogen into pastures, which improves soil fertility, while the leaves and pods offer livestock protein-rich forage. The results include improved nutrition and higher milk yields. The hardwood trees provide future sources of fuel, which eases the pressure that firewood harvesting puts on existing forests. The fruit trees offer the clients sustainable income, while increasing the biodiversity of farms and enriching family diets.

   Three fifth-year students from the Department of Agro-ecology at the National Autonomous University of Nicaragua (UNAN) in León interned with the project for six weeks. They created a questionnaire and interviewed every participating client to gather the baseline information, which provide the data for an impact analysis of the project in two years. They stayed with clients in the field, lent a hand with planting, and gave continued technical support. The hardwood trees were grown by an environmental youth program, which is operated by the Norwalk (Connecticut)/Nagarote Sister City Project (N/NSCP). The N/NSCP also offered its beautiful nursery and organic garden as a workshop site.

   We were grateful for the support provided by the municipal government of Nagarote. It donated use of the former train station for presentations, and it sent environmental team members to the workshops. We reviewed material and planned the workshops with faculty members from the UNAN Agro-ecology Department. During the workshops, clients and trainers discussed the importance of natural water resources, soil conservation, and organic farm management. We made compost piles and constructed terraces to prevent soil erosion. The farmers shared rides to the trainings on their oxcarts, and collectively organized the transport of trees and fertilizers to each farm.

   Following the workshops, the student interns, the N/NSCP nursery manager (Javier), the CEPRODEL project coordinator (Luis), and I formed three teams and spent a week working with a group of clients. And the UNAN agronomist in charge of the project (Vernonn Berrias) assisted clients with disease control and planting fruit trees. Since the group trainings, the clients have maintained contact with each other and continue to play an active role in the organization of the project. The three student interns will return in November to assist in a second series of workshops involving the production of organic insecticides, silvopastoreo, and the reproduction of fruit trees. Plans to expand the project next year, including an emphasis on forest conservation and farm diversification, are already in the works and will include the National Institute of Forests (INAFOR). The current participants have responded positively and prospective participants in Nagarote have been eagerly inquiring about the upcoming year.

   Within the microfinance world, projects that contribute to positive environmental outcomes are rare. And reforestation and educational projects run by governments or environmental NGO’s rarely have economic development components. But this joint project of SOSTENICA and CEPRODEL does both, by offering participants credit to purchase organic fertilizer or irrigation systems and to hire help at harvest time. CEPRODEL’s Nagarote office director Miguel Calderón observed “We are walking a new path of education and credit by accompanying our clients more closely in the development of their businesses. Many financial institutions see social and environmental projects as not being profitable, so they shy away from such projects.”

   On a more personal note, during the week of workshops I stayed with the Rene Abrahan Escoto Juarez family in Las Limas, which is thirty minutes from Nagarote. Las Limas has no electricity or city water. After the workshops, I helped prepare the area where the family planned to plant the trees. In the evenings we lit candles or sat outside in front of the house, under a vast starlit sky. I had the opportunity to listen to their land and family’s history, and to talk for hours about living and farming in Nicaragua. I saw first hand how this project touches values central to the lives of these farmers. They understand how fragile and precious nature is and the importance of access to financial credit.

Vernonn and JR Mendoza

   
    Vernonn Berrios visits each participating farm several times a month to provide assistance and to evaluate problems. Vernonn began working with the project in June after graduating at the top of his class from UNAN’s innovative Agro-Ecology masters degree program. Rachel interviewed him for this newsletter.

What was your area of expertise at the UNAN?

I wrote my thesis on Plant Pathology (the study of plant diseases). After graduating, I worked as a teacher’s assistant in one of the field classes, and as an intern in a lab, which produced biological control insects. I also helped design manuals about biological controls.

Why did you choose to study agriculture?

Even as a boy, I wanted to work outside. My grandfather was a farmer, but my father sold the land and moved our family to the city when I was only a few months old. As a child, I tended the plants in the patio and I now have my own collection of ornamental plants. I was always interested in studying botany, but the biology department doesn’t offer that as a major, and there is very little work in Nicaragua for research scientists. The Agro-Ecology Department at the UNAN in León focuses on horticulture, and I enjoyed working in the laboratories. After I left the Agro-Ecology Department, I worked with the Millennium Corporation Challenge in a large reforestation project. I enjoyed working with trees and with the participants, and I learned many things from that project which apply to my work with CEPRODEL. I like the adventure of this kind of work – getting my hands in the soil, assisting with fieldwork, and returning dirty at the end of the day.

What are your responsibilities with the Reforestation Project in Nagarote?

I encourage the clients to adopt organic practices that prevent disease. I diagnose any diseases or other problems that might arise. Most of the clients have never received any kind of formal technical training, and the organic care of fruit trees is new to them. They often have questions and insecurities about how to treat problems. I talk to them a lot when I visit the farms. There is always some information that I can pass on to them, but it is also an exchange of knowledge, because I learn things from them, too. I always talk about the trees in the project but offer advice in any other topics of interest to them. A technician has to serve in many ways in the field – as an organizer, a mentor, a teacher, and a friend.

What are some of the challenges that you experience now or expect to encounter during the project?

The biggest challenge right now is the drought. Everyone is worried about keeping the trees alive, and in some cases the clients chose to plant fewer plantains because they don’t have available irrigation systems. Another challenge is disease management, because many farmers look for fast curative treatments when diseases arrive but don’t take the preventative measures to avoid getting them in the first place. That’s the result of industrial agriculture and the overuse of chemicals. Organic farm management requires farmers to focus on the health of the soil and to create habitats for beneficial insects, things which help prevent disease and pest damage. In the future, I think the challenges will be marketing the fruit because the systems for marketing fruit are different than those for milk and beef cattle.

The Participants

The participating farms range from 13 to 250 acres in size. Most of the farms rely on milk and cattle sales, supplemented by cultivating corn and sorghum, harvesting firewood, and making charcoal. Many farmers receive remittances from family living abroad. Very few of the farmers have hired help, and several of them have side jobs at larger farms in the area. Each family brings its own vision and unique physical layout to the project. Please enjoy the following stories of three of the twenty four families participating in the project.

Sheyla Vasquez Contreras Contreras, 26 Community San Gabriel

The Contreras family lives on 14 acres that Sheyla’s father Aaron received during the Nicaraguan land reform movement in 1988. The family named its farm El Guanacaste, a type of native tropical hardwood tree found along the stream bordering their land. Sheyla lives with her parents, husband and two children on their farm, where they grow corn and sorghum and raise chickens, pigs, turkeys, and cows. They are mainly subsistence farmers, setting aside enough for themselves and selling the rest, which forms the staple of their income. Theirs is the smallest landholding in the project. They received just enough trees to line the stream bed with hardwoods and to fill the corral closest to their house with fruit trees. The drought, blamed on "el Niño" has hit them hard. The stream is currently dry, and they have not yet been able to seed their corn and sorghum. They are watering their trees from their well, and are especially looking forward to the fruit harvest. Aaron admits he particularly loves oranges, but he will certainly sell locally whatever is leftover after the family eats all they can.

Julio Cesar Tórrez Trujillo, 62 Community San Antonio

After attending the project training workshops, Julio Cesar rearranged his corrals and pastures. Last May, the corral closest to the river adjoining his land was a barren slope leading straight down the bank. Now the slope is crisscrossed with citrus saplings and is green with sprouting undergrowth. He will plant his fruit trees along the contours of the riverbank, and the trees will prevent further soil erosion from heavy rains that had previously carried the manure from the corral directly into the river. He has moved the corral to his son’s farm nearby, and in return, will happily share the fruit harvest with his son. He and his children farm 70 acres, which consists of land he received during the land reform movement in the 1980’s and pastureland he purchased since then. Julio Cesar experimented with growing tomatoes for wholesale marketing, but after several years of losses. he has settled into raising cattle, which have, until now, had a fairly stable market and may be less risky than raising crops. Aside from pasture for his cattle, he dedicates 10 acres to growing corn and sorghum. Many of his family members have land and houses in his community, and they work closely together to cooperatively manage their land and cattle. Reflecting on what this project means to him, Don Trujillo says he is pleased that he can pass improved quality land to his children.

Carmen Reynaldo Morales Mendoza

Carmen Reynaldo Morales Mendoza, 55 Community El Chorizo

Ten years ago Carmen Reynaldo Morales Mendoza fell in love with Yamileth Morán. They married and settled on 42 acres he bought in a small community near La Paz Centro where her family lives. The couple started a cattle farm and are excited about diversifying with the planting of fruit, plantain, and hardwood trees. They even offered more land for plantains than originally required! They designed a three acre pasture along the river for the fruit and plantain trees, and transformed the entrance to their farm by lining the driveway with orange trees. They hope to sell in both local and national markets. They have been watering half of the trees in the pasture each day, a job that takes them two hours working together. They are hoping that October brings its usual rains, and they have taken out a small loan to purchase an irrigation pump for the summer months. They can use the irrigation pump both to water the saplings and to establish improved varieties of cattle pasture. With the help of the returning student interns from UNAN in December, Don Carmen plans on building terraces in one of the remaining pastures that slopes down to the river. He will be using the Aparatus A, a measuring device that finds the level line of the terrace. He learned how to use the device to mark contour lines during the June workshops.

Since its inception, SosteNica has been committed to sustainability. We even built it into our name: the Sustainable Development Fund of Nicaragua. But saying and doing are distinctly different. Daily we ask ourselves -- How does an organization such as ours use credit to enhance sustainability?

Some would argue that helping low income people to enhance their economic viability promotes their family's sustainability. In an economic sense, any micro-loan program furthers sustainability. But what about environmental sustainability? Hasn't it been shown that people who consume more have a larger negative environmental footprint? From that perspective, isn't micro-credit, if successful in raising borrowers' standard of living, actually harming the environment?

For nearly a decade SosteNica has pushed the rural lending envelope. Yes, we loan to low income urban borrowers. Our Market Express has reached out to thousands of small businesses, mostly women-owned, to make credit available - expressing our "preferential option for the poor."

At the same time we have gone beyond the conventional micro-credit zones of operation by extending an ever increasing number of our loans in rural areas. We recognize that we need to balance our urban lending with credit for the rural poor. Rural lending helps to confront the growing trends of rural exodus. Those who remain in the Nicaraguan country side find it difficult to make a living.They lack credit, access to markets, and adequate training. Worse, little to nothing is being done to address the worsening ecological situation.

In the past decade, major rivers in Nicaragua have dried up, top soil has been lost at an alarming rate, deforestation continues to increase, and the use of toxic chemicals poisons the landscape, as well as workers and their families.

For several years now, we have linked rural credit with technical assistance in the hopes of seeing an increase in the use and adoption of sustainable agricultural practices. Sadly, our rural credit program, while contributing to greater social justice, has not made the kind of positive environmental impacts we had hoped for.

So, in 2008 SosteNica and CEPRODEL leadership decided to take bold steps to address the situation. We selected a leadership team from Nicaragua to be the first to attend a week-long training in permaculture and sustainable agriculture in Mexico. We selected Carlos Cáceres (national director of credit), Luís Rivas (national technical expert in agriculture), Cesar Castillo (El Sauce Branch Manager), Prof. Tito Antón (Professor at UNAN/León in Agroecology), and Miguel Calderon (Nagarote Branch Manager).

For six days these five men, along with SosteNica President Alan Wright joined twenty Mexican farmers and development promoters to study the art of sustainable agriculture in all of its many aspects. What did we learn? We learned about how to grow trees in cow pastures to improve the dairy cow's diet as well as to fix carbon. We learned about the vital importance of soil conservation and techniques such as living fence lines and terracing for retaining soil on farmed slopes. We made compost and liquid organic fertilizers. We double dug raised beds, trans-planted seedlings and mulched new vegetable garden beds.

We even managed human composting toilets, and learned about the incredible fertility of human urine and feces. Appropriate technologies also made it onto the agenda, as we studied composting toilets, gray water treatment, solar water pumps, rain water caption systems, and fuel efficient wood stoves. To fuel the stoves, we learned about renewable wood lots and trees that work well for coppicing. Finally, we learned the basic principles of permaculture. At the end of the week, these representatives from SosteNica, CEPRODEL and UNAN sat down to record their observations and conclusions.

The first decision - send the complete CEPRODEL leadership team to the next agro-ecology training in Mexico. And that is what we did. In March, 2009 CEPRODEL Board members, Leon, Managua and Chinandega branch managers, and the national head of credit (shown in the photo on the left) attended the next series of workshops.

These two groups, once back in Managua, put forward a bold new program for rural sustainability. . This two-year program is only in its earliest stages, and we will be reporting much more about it in future newsletters. Already, however, we want to acknowledge Mary Lindsay whose extraordinary generosity has made the launch of this program possible. At the same time we want to recognize Mary's granddaughter, Rachel Lindsay, currently working in Nicaragua as a Fulbright Fellow, representing SosteNica at the launch of this important effort. Stay tuned!

   Rural sustainability means, in part, preserving and cultivating the natural resources upon which rural communities depend. Clear-cutting forest for timber or removing mountaintops to strip mine coal are obvious examples of practices that are neither sustainable nor environmentally acceptable. Sadly, conventional farming is often a small scale version of strip mining and clear cutting. To combat this custom, SOSTENICA provides its borrowers with instruction and support to plant trees – a novel concept referred to as “integrated silvopastoral grazing systems.” SOSTENICA ‘s farmers plant nitrogen fixing trees in their pastures to provide shade for animals during the hot summer months. At the same time, these trees improve the available nitrogen in the soil, making the fodder grasses denser and more nutritious without the need for chemical fertilization. Trees also serve as wind breaks, to slow the drying April winds that precede the rainy season, and the trees drop high protein edible bean pods that the livestock eat. In addition, riparian reforestation (planting trees along the banks of streams), together with ponds and lakes are welcome additions to SOSTENICA’s borrowers’ lands. The Pacific coastal region of Nicaragua receives six months of rain, followed by six months of drought – without fail. Measures that contribute to water retention during the dry season also contribute to sustaining the health of domestic animals, crops, and wildlife in general.