MOVING FROM STARVATION TO SELF-SUFFICIENCY WITH GOD AND AGRICULTURE
As Americans, we have no idea what hunger really means. While we do have hungry people in America, we don’t have starving people. We are a nation with “safety nets” that most developing nations do not have. Nicaragua is one of those nations that has no support systems and the lack of such is nowhere more pronounced than in the Miskito areas of eastern Nicaragua.
When we first met with the leaders of Kisalaya in September 2014 to discuss their community needs, the three areas they wanted to work on were agriculture, clean water and pastoral assistance and training for the ministers of the community. The reason for addressing the agriculture aspect was because of the historical “skinny season” from June to September in the Miskito communities where there was simply no food. The two staples – rice and beans – have been consumed by this time and they have to wait on the rice crop to come due in September. Compound this with the fact that the unemployment in Kisalaya and the surrounding villages is at 99%, and we realized that there was no way to purchase food during this critical time.
We were told the way the villagers got through the many days of the skinny season without food was to take pieces of bark from the pine trees, clean them and then swallow them. These chunks of bark would fill the stomach during the day to give the false feeling of being full of food. At night they would regurgitate the bark, clean them and swallow them again the next morning. This was often repeated as many as 30 days at a time. We became acquainted with children who had suffered the serious affects of the starvation season resulting in serious physical and mental deficiencies. It’s difficult to imagine an eleven year old child weighing only thirty-seven pounds or a seven year old only weighing eleven pounds, both with severe disabilities created by the extreme starvation.
This situation could only be resolved through providing bean and rice seeds to every family and allowing them to figure out what to do in order to be able to increase their production in ways that could bridge the annual starvation season. We agreed to be partners and not parents in our relationship, which meant we would not tell them what to do. They knew their situation far better than we and what could work; they just needed people who could walk with them through their successes and failures until they found the answer that would work.
The first crop of red beans was successfully planted in January 2015 with a hybrid bean that flourished exceptionally well in the soil conditions of the Kisalaya area, with SALT providing the funds to buy the seeds for the 300 plus families in Kisalaya. Working with a micro-financing concept, the people agreed to return the exact amount of beans given to each family to SALT to repay the loan of the seeds. They also agreed to try to tithe their crops in order to help care for the widows, orphans and disabled of their community. Mike Jones, one of our SALT team members, arrived in Kisalaya on April 1 to coordinate the final management of this crop of beans and to help the people secure their rice seeds for the next crop planting, using the same guidelines of repayment and tithing. God did a mighty work here!
The first effort with the beans resulted in a 71% rate of return, which was an incredible victory for the first attempt at microfinancing. And, that rate of return was reduced by rodent infestations in some areas and the absconding of all fields planted in Honduras by that nation’s military. Many Nicaraguan Miskito people have historically planted beans in Honduras as the indigenous Miskitos live in both countries. But, at harvest, the Honduran military came in and took the fields ready for harvest and used force to remove the people of Kisalaya back across the Rio Coco. For future rice crops, we expected an even greater rate of return based on the success of the first bean crop.
God moved mightily in getting the rice seeds together. As was done with the red bean seeds, we expected a return from their harvest equal to that which was distributed. Mike worked with the local leaders to purchase, deliver and distribute the seeds. The role of the people of Kisalaya to ultimately manage the entire operation was extended to the point that they did most of the work themselves. This is what it is about – empowering them to become everything God intends for them to be! We watched God move to reveal Himself in the work they were doing and they realized that He alone was their source. They began to recognize that He made them more able to do greater things than they ever believed. They also created their own farming-cooperative to manage every aspect of seed purchasing, distribution, harvest and repayment.
In addition, Mike worked with three families on a test run of farming beyond family subsistence to growing more with the intention of being able to sell the extra to make money for their families. This was another microfinancing effort and we trusted God would reveal Himself in this effort in five ways – that 1) they would tithe the 10%, 2) they would repay their loan, 3) they would have enough rice for their family to eat for a year, 4) they would be able to set back enough seed for the next planting season and, 5) they would have leftover crop to sell on the market. The plan worked and was the beginning toward the end of the historical skinny season in 2017.
SALT again fronted the January 2017, red bean planting by purchasing the seeds, but the rest of the work to make everything happen was done by the local farming co-operative representing each of the four neighborhoods in Kisalaya. The farming co-op created by the people was arranged to receive and distribute the beans, to keep accurate records of all aspects of the seed management, and to collect the repayment of the beans from the harvest in April and to repay their loan to us. This five-year goal was reached in just two years, for which we praised God!
God blessed Kisalaya with a very favorable harvest in both rice and beans. The rice harvest followed by the April red bean harvest were so successful that the usual “skinny (starvation) season” did not happen. For the first time in many decades, the people had enough to eat for the entire year and there was no time without food. Not only had the people done all the work on the crops but, with God’s help, a major goal of eliminating the starvation time was accomplished. The situation completely changed in just two years. And, the actual cost to feed the people worked out to be $2.32 per person for an entire year – only about 24 cents per month per person! God was given the glory for what He had done and He continues to be praised for His faithful provision. While the SALT team was there in December, the red bean seeds for the January 2018 planting were received and distributed as well. Again, everything was handled by the local co-op.
At the same time, the leaders of another village – Kururia – about twenty miles away from Kisalaya, came on foot to Kisalaya to meet with their leaders and learn more about what they were hearing going on in Kisalaya with SALT. The bottom line is that the leaders of Kisalaya taught the leaders of Kururia everything they had learned and Kururia established its own farming cooperative with SALT partnering with this new village. The people of Kururia have been very committed to the process and their relationship with SALT and their rate of return has often been the full 100%, which permits SALT to front the next seed purchase. We have also expanded our agriculture assistance to a new village – Turburus – and we are doing the same thing with them in the realm of agriculture.
We have also worked with numerous individuals in Kisalaya, teaching them basic economic principles so they could expand their crops from just rice and beans to watermelons, cucumbers, tomatoes, yucca, peppers, corn, cabbage, and numerous other supplemental crops. Families interested in branching out to create a bartering capability in the community have written contracts with SALT. These contracts are “business plans” to grow new crops and include presenting on paper the entire process to prepare the land, plant the seeds, harvest the crop and barter with others growing different crops or, selling the excess in the larger city of Waspam for cash and paying back the cost of the investment SALT made. This micro-financed concept has been a learning experience. Some contracts were able to be fulfilled, while others were not. Whether successful in business terms or not, the learning – even in the failures – have been tremendous as they continue to work toward self-sufficiency through Christ.
The severity of the two back-to-back hurricanes in 2020 has set everything back to nearly “ground zero” and we are beginning again the process of establishing the incredible progress made up to the time of those destructive storms. But, God is faithful and we are working hand-in-hand with the people to recover and meet the food needs of the communities.
