Learning days at Las Flores Farm
May into June has been a glorious and productive time at Inga Foundation. Much of our work is educational and aimed at helping people to become self-sufficient: we teach our agroforestry methods to both existing farmers and the next generation, so that with enough local experts we might one day write ourselves out of this picture.
This group of students from local colleges and schools spent two days learning to graft trees: one productive tree onto the stem of a ‘mother’ tree, speeding up time to fruiting and passing on healthy germplasm. They had a lesson from Abraham including practical examples around the farm, and then the chance to try it themselves.
We also had a special guest here to capture our work – La Masica Honduras who films positive stories in Spanish language.
Success story: Castulo
Here’s a delighted Castulo Chavarria with armfuls of maize and an enormous crate of tomatoes grown with the Inga method on less than half a hectare. His daughter prepares a few cobs: once cooked they will be mashed, wrapped in the maize leaves and baked, producing sweet ‘tamales’ that can be eaten, sold or given away.
His friend Pedro (image 5), convinced that slash and burn is the only way he can farm, took a chance and decided to test-farm half of this plot using alley cropping. Staggered with the results, he’s now looking to expand alley cropping onto his own land, with our support.
The new La Lucha Tree nursery
Our new mini tree nursery in La Lucha – located in the San Antonio sub-catchment of the Cangrejal – is thriving. This is just one of the many things your donations have enabled us to build, and it’s already providing local farmers with the means to farm with nature – not against it. These tree saplings mean abundance for families: we supply not only inga trees for alley cropping but also fruit and timber trees that can one day be sold.
From poor harvests to abundance: Marlene
One of our newest farmers, Marlene, is a single mum who came to us after suffering from a very poor harvest (image 2) using old methods of farming on her single hectare of land. With our support, she is now on the journey to restore her nutrient-poor soil and produce better crops in the future, for both her and her daughter.
32,000 Inga tree seeds
This is what 32,000 Inga tree seeds look like! 10-12 seeds will grow within each of these long woody vines (image 2). These particular ones are destined for Copán, North of Honduras, where Inga alley cropping is revolutionising coffee growing. They’re placed in sacks of retentive organic material to prevent them from germinating until ready.
