Participation, Experience, Hope
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My Time with the Farmers of Honduras
By Claire Kane
A young Canadian studying at the University of North Carolina, Claire Kane was looking for bridges between Ottawa, her hometown, and her campus work. Passionate about food sovereignty, Claire got involved with a student non-profit organization, Nourish International, and realized that might be the connection.
She knew about USC Canada, based in Ottawa, and in autumn of 2007, she approached us to see about connecting Nourish with our Seeds of Survival program. We were happy to put her in touch with our Honduran partner, Foundation for Participatory Research with Honduran Farmers (FIPAH). A few months later she and a Nourish team of six students arrived in Central America to support FIPAH’s work.
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| Claire Kane (L) plays a game with members of a youth group during a workshop to help them develop English language skills. |
We arrived in May 2008 and spent two busy months in Honduras meeting farmers, teaching English to youth groups, building greenhouses, helping with a climate change program, and learning about participatory farmer research. Little did I know the time I spent in Honduras would turn out to be one of the most meaningful experiences of my life.
One of the friends I made during my time in Honduras is Claudia, an 18-year-old from Ojo de Agua, a small community high in the mountains surrounding the region of Jesus de Otoro. Claudia’s mother, Isidora Garcia, is a rural leader and farmer-researcher, who has been working with FIPAH for many years.
Claudia in turn has come to be involved with FIPAH, doing agricultural research with a young people’s community group. I met Claudia a few times over the course of my stay but I hadn’t had the time for a deeper conversation until my last week in Jesus de Otoro.
| The farmers in Honduras that work with FIPAH form community-led agricultural research teams, known by the Spanish acronym CIALs. Farmer-researchers like Isidora then identify their most pressing agricultural problems and, with help from FIPAH, work out solutions. Isidora’s CIAL, for instance, is working to improve organic pesticides. |
Claudia and I were paired together to work on FIPAH’s baseline research about soil quality, harvest, social capital, and all kinds of other factors that affect a community’s ability to adapt to climate change.
Together we went door to door and spent the better part of an hour with each household, asking questions for our survey. In the fading light of the late afternoon, sitting on a rock or stool in the homes of hillside farmers, we would ask, “How do you know when the land is ready to sow your seeds?” Our quiet interviewee would think for some time and then say softly, “The moon.”
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| Claudia worked with Claire to record the wisdom of local farmers. |
While Claudia probed further, asking, “When the moon is full? A few days after?” I would take note of their answers. Although their comments about soil fertility and crops often varied, the moon was a common, if not universal response for judging the readiness of the soil. Observing the effects of lunar cycles has been part of traditional agricultural practices for thousands of years and many farmers have found that planting at certain points in the moon’s cycle yields better harvests.
We would nod, flip the page, and ask another question. Sometimes, if we were not quick enough with our survey, the sun would set and we would finish the last page by candlelight. We would thank the farmers for their time and make our way out to the road, united against the dark and staring up at the stars.
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| Francisco Mencia prepares his field in Rio Abajo village for planting beans. |
After a week working on the survey, I realized that one of the most incredible things about participatory research – which engages the farmers and draws on their experience – is that it allows FIPAH to contract youth like Claudia to be part of the process. Not only does it offer Claudia employment, she is able to develop professional skills and become a better steward of the land.
This experience and my time in Honduras made it clear to me that FIPAH’s food sovereignty approach – facilitating farmers’ ability to grow their own food and control their production systems – is not only one of the most hopeful efforts at solving the ecological crisis of my generation, it also gives the people of marginalized communities the tools they need to build their own future.
It was an enormous privilege to see the work of an effective NGO first hand, to see the changes they are making, and to see that there really is a way to support sustainable development and social justice. It gave me a lot of hope for the future.
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USC Canada
was founded by
Dr Lotta Hitschmanova in 1945. Our award-winning Seeds of Survival program promotes vibrant family farms, strong rural communities, and healthy ecosystems around the world.
