The rural Nicaraguan communities of Las Breñas and San Sebastian are not easy to access. My recent journey from the SHI-Nicaragua office took nearly six hours and, in transit, everything I passed was either enchanting or disheartening – mangroves, swamps, tropical low-land forests, pastures, the ruins of what was once nature now slashed and burned. As the path took me deeper and deeper into human-induced destruction, ignorance and lack of knowledge, I grew more and more disappointed until, that is, I would arrive at an SHI participant farm, such as Don Esteban’s, Don Santos’ or Don Candido's. In the past, these farmers raised cattle, deforested vast tracts of land and ignored the need to diversify, but now they are changing as they learn from SHI Field Trainer, Don Cipriano, using his farm as an example.

Few times during our life do we have the opportunity to meet an individual who awakens us from our sometimes forlorn dreams and directs us on a new path of hope.  For five days in February 2011, SHI’s field staff were delivered such an awakening at the hands of Jairo Restrepo Rivera - consultant for the Latin American organization COAS, organic visionary, activist, author and scientist.  Jairo preached to us on the basic of conventional agriculture, the agro-industrial complex, farmer-to-farmer communication and organic agriculture as a social movement. His passion and knowledge resonated deeply with many of us, but most importantly, forced us to reflect on organic farming and its future in society, particularly in rural communities throughout Latin America.

SHI Youth will be the Farmers of the Future

Children are the future and in order to further our work we need to develop values in children that they can share with their parents.

~ Mercedes Alvarez, SHI Regional Coordinator

I live in the community of Las Breñas, Kukra River, Nicaragua and have six children and two grand-children.  Five years ago my family started with the Suatainable Harvest International program, and we now believe that organic and sustainable farming is the best way to get out of poverty.

As a woman I have felt my dream realized, when I see that my garden produces more each year and with better quality.  SHI has made a big change in our lives, given that today my children have different vegetables and our nutrition is better every day.

SHI is an organization that demands continual work, but you see results.  I hope that every year, more women have the opportunity of working with SHI, because it’s an organization that benefits our families and teaches us to protect our environment.

~ Marta Rojas, Nicaragua

In the past, a lot of promising organizations came to our village and worked for a little while but most of the time, nothing was done.  It was not until SHI-Belize, which many of us had heard of and had long waited for, accepted the invitation to work with our village of Sunday Wood, that we had hope.  We had heard and seen what SHI accomplished in the other villages, so we did not need to think twice about working with them.