The Norman Borlaug Spirit

Interesting, isn't it, that just about anywhere you go in the world, farmers face the same problems. Developed world or undeveloped, rich or poor, big or small, the major issues have striking similarities.

Would you believe that here in Guatemala, one of the biggest problems in agriculture involves corn and beans. Specifically, too much reliance on both. And the biggest obstacle to that is the stubborn nature of the farmers themselves.

Sound familiar?

For centuries, Guatemalan farmers and their ancestors, the Mayans, have been growing and surviving off of corn and beans (it's generally black beans in this case, not soybeans). This has to be one of the oldest agrarian civilizations in history, probably going back more than 10,000 years to when the early Mayans discovered that maize could be easily cultivated, it was prolific, and it could sustain life by itself, if necessary.

Some say that corn actually originated here, a descendant of an earlier plant that grew kernels on it's tassel or head. There's good evidence that other New World plants so important to human survival also originated right here in or near Guatemala: potatoes, tomatoes, squash, and pumpkins.

They've been growing corn here a long time. And it was also a long time ago that they discovered that the vining black bean was a perfect companion. They could even grow them in the same field, at the same time. The black bean is a legume, and it "fixes" nitrogen from the air that can be used as a nutrient for the plant. Corn, a grass, can't do that, but it can steal some nitrogen from the beans if they are grown side-by-side. Because almost all of the field work is done by hand labor, you can easily grow two crops with different planting times and different harvest times in the very same field.

And the bean plant gets something from the corn: a place to vine. The resulting crops, corn and beans, make up more than 50% of the typical Guatemalan (and all Central American) diet. The beans are turned into a paste, and spread on tortillas made from the corn. It's high in protien and calories, and very sustaining. They serve it, with some limited variety, 3 times a day.

The problem is, there's no cash in this system, nothing for sale, and it tends to perpetuate a low standard of living among the 80% of Guatemalans who live in poverty. It's subsistence agriculture, and barely subsistence living. Guatemalan families grow the corn and beans exclusively, they eat and survive, but there's no economic growth. All societal infrastructure, perhaps most especially education, suffers in this labor-intensive, cashless system. And in a culture that values large families, poverty persists, perpetuates, and grows.

There are efforts underway to change this. A project of the Borlaug Instutute, centered at Texas A&M University and funded by a USDA grant, is trying to bring some options to farmers. They are arranging seminars and trial projects to point out alternative crops, and try to help small farmers pool resources and find markets.

"Corn is the staple crop here, like rice in Asia, and we won't stop that," says Yanet Rodriquez, who arranges seminars for farmers at the Borlaug office and project center here in Chimaltenango, Guatemala. "They can and will grow the corn and beans, but we want them to see that they need to diversify to help the family."

The director of this project, which will run for two more years, is Carolina Oleas, a native of Ecuador who found her way to Texas A&M for graduate school. There, she met Norman Borlaug and was inspired by his story of breeding better crops to eliminate starvation. She and others at the Institute like to use his famous Borlaug quote: "The essential component for human justice is that every human being have access to quality food." Both Oleas and Rodrquez have a passion for international development, and helping poor families better themselves.

Oleas says the basis of the project in Guatemala is to teach small farmers the value of rotation and crop diversificiation. "They've been growing corn and black beans forever, and they always will. But we can show them the value of a little diversity for the good of the soil, and to provide a 'money' crop that will help their family to advance.

"We believe that if you teach them how to grow a diffent crop and help them find a market, they will do it," Oleas says. "In some cases, we need to get a group of 20 farmers together to grow a crop in the right quantity and quality, then hook them up with an exporter."

Two examples of the kind of crops that have potential are snow peas, and French beans. Both grow well in this tropical, highland climate, with a year-around growing season. There are regional markets for the peas and beans in Central America, plus in the United States. "Water is the issue in some cases, because they have a dry season in the winter," says Oleas. "But that's where it can pay them to pool their resources and fields to irrigate."

They are also helping these farmers learn techniques for harvesting and storing the crops on their own, to avoid the middleman, or "coyotes" as they call them here.

Still, the problems of tradition persist. Guatemalan farmers have been growing corn for so long, with such cultural ties, they have actually become a sort of cult. "Men of corn" is what they call themselves, and some of them don't take advice well. "Generations have survived on corn," says Oleas, "and even though there is much soil erosion and soil quality is low, they put a little fresh manure out and the corn grows. They are completely confident that they can grow a corn crop every year, and often point out the problems they have when they try to grow something else. It's a Central American perspective, they'd rather stay with the thing they've done forever."

This project is reaching out to several thousand small Guatemalan farmers with a message of change. Will they? Maybe, if the Normal Borlaug spirit still lives.

(I have some pictures I will post soon to show aspects of this post, and the Borlaug project in Gutemala.)