HONDURAS — Central Honduras is home to many of the nation’s farming communities. Within a lush, hilly terrain, Honduran farmers grow the country’s chief exports including coffee, plantains, beans, rice, maize and other vegetables and grains for local markets and subsistence.
However, among these critically important agricultural regions can be found Honduras’ most chronically impoverished communities. Despite a three percent average annual increase in national economic productivity over the last two decades, Honduran subsistence farmers and their families are struggling to develop some sense of food and financial security.
Approximately 70 percent of all Honduran farmers are subsistence farmers. Many cultivate small plots of land on steep hillsides in the interior highlands. Much of the soil in these hillsides is nutrient deficient due to heavy agricultural use, deforestation, erosion and a difficult climate.
Honduras is vulnerable to flooding and hurricanes which can erode agricultural soils, destroy crops and damage much needed infrastructure. The 2017 Global Climate Risk Index named Honduras as the nation most affected by extreme weather from 1996 to 2015, followed by Myanmar and Haiti.
Food security in Honduras is difficult to establish with such low yields and high crop losses.
According to a 2012 International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) report, approximately 38 percent of all working Hondurans are employed in agriculture. However, available farmland is scarce, comprising only 28 percent of the nation’s land mass. Many farmers are employed on farmland owned by others. These farm laborers lack property and job insecurity.
Subsistence farmers are often unable to supply or purchase enough nutritious food for their families, save up or invest in services or technology that could help them improve crop yields.
According to Carlos Andréu, poverty in rural communities is worsened when the areas are geographically isolated from non-agricultural employment opportunities.
The IFAD report noted that Honduran hillside farming communities have not been able to support a diversity of employment opportunities. They also do not have good access to many external markets where they can find important resources and sell their produce.
In addition, extreme drug cartel violence in some regions stifle present businesses and discourage potential entrepreneurs as they cannot develop faith in a safe and promising market for their services.
Many farming families depend on external financial sources to survive. Family members or friends often have to seek alternative income in other regions or outside Honduras, sending money from afar.
This has been a chronic problem in the interior highlands of Central Honduras for many decades. IFAD has been working to improve food security in Honduran farming communities since 1979. The organization has designed and implemented at least 11 development projects that concentrate on improving food security in Honduras, believing food insecurity is a key cause of extreme and persistent poverty.
Each of their development projects are developed to meet the needs of specific regions and communities in Honduras. In varying degrees, all endeavor to:
• diversify employment opportunities
• improve access to external markets
• improve market competitiveness of local farmers, fisherman and artisans
• support new or struggling business ventures through micro loans and grants
• provide training for communities in administering new and present business ventures
• encourage local governments to more effectively ensure loans, farmers’ savings and land registrations
• better educate women to diversify their employment opportunities so they can provide more for their families while diminishing the gender gap
• provide indigenous farmers services to establish their land claims.
IFAD also seeks to improve community resilience against natural disasters. To do so, they work with communities to plan regionally for sustainable use of natural resources and to improve environmental adaptability.
While there is a great deal left to achieve in a nation wracked by so much poverty and violence, IFAD’s numerous past and present projects have helped tens of thousands of households develop greater food security in Honduras.
– Diana Nightingale
Photo: Flickr