Improve Nicaraguan Farmers Nutrition & Incomes

Darwin lives with his wife and his two children in a small community called Cruz Verde located at 14.92 miles from San Carlos head city of Rio San Juan, this young man has a low level of literacy and lives in the community for more than 20 years and has good knowledge of agriculture as he has been working the land with his father since he was 12 years old, helping him to prepared the land in a traditional way and remembered that always for each planting season they used to burn the land before planting or spread the corn in a broadcast manner and once it was planted cut down the forest, by those times they did not fertilize and used almost no chemicals to control weeds or pests, just sometimes when it was necessary to control weeds they used a hoe or machetes and the maize yields were good and not much money was spent to obtain good yield results, time has passed and the lands weakened so they have stopped these practices of preparing the land and cleaning it, stopping using tools and changed them by chemical inputs. He continued sharing: And I was always focused on that methodology of my ancestors because when I looked at changes and new planting strategies I usually said to me “the uses of these inputs are not very convenient for the soil since they damage and weaken the land, it is one of the reasons why when we currently sow the plants are thinner, the plant produces small ears or sometimes it does not produce because the soil does not have the necessary components for it due to the bad treatment that we cause using chemicals for its cleaning”.

I changed my mind once I got to know Self-Help International and the agriculture program. I learned that as time goes by it is necessary to make changes to achieve a desired yield because if not, we are just working for the daily meal.

Like any other organization that works with the rural sector, Self – Help International works with community leaders who are people who organize the population for any activity in benefit of the community. Once we received a visit from the technician Rodolfo Hernández, my father (community leader) and I organized a group of farmers to be train. In that training session we learned everything regarding the corn, planting system as well as its agronomic management to obtain higher productive yields. Unfortunately, by the time we had that training all of our community farmers had already planted their corn in a traditional way and we were not table to make the proposal experimental plots as we did not have land available to carry out the new technique. I remember that all this was for a Primera planting season (in the month of May or raining season in our region), and since I already had a notion of this double row planting system because I have saw other farmers in the area to be working with Self – Help International and I even had obtain some seed previously of the organization visit, believe me I was really exciting to learn that we will have the same chance of experience as the other farmers had in previous years.

Nearing to the sowing season of postreras (October drying season in our region) we were invited by Self – Help International to another training session, this time was with the purpose of train farmers to have special skills in which they could become a “Certified Seeds Producer”, we (my community group members) attended the training at the organization's facilities and everything was explained to us, about all the process and requirements that we needed to follow up to become seed producer, also the organization would finance to us to be able to follow all the processes. I personally did not accept the proposal since I don´t have enough land available to make this type of job, as one of the main requirements was that the corn INTA – Nutrader (High Quality Protein) variety planting should not be near to other corn varieties due to pollen contamination. And in our case we all are small farmers with a small piece of land.

The only thing I considered was appropriated for us was to become a commercial corn producer using our small piece of land in which if we applied the double row technique we would get a higher yield even if we use that small amount of land, so after having received the training session of the Certified Seed Production, I asked to the Self – Help International representatives if they could support us with a small loan to sow commercial corn instead of certified seed, of course always using the "double row technique and the QPM corn”, the organization gave a positive response and financed around $275 (two hundred and seventy-five dollars net) for each one of the 5 young farmers including myself, to make all this possible we signed an agreement with the organization where we promised to use the variety of corn and carry out the double row sowing technique establishing 1.7 acres.

Sowing with this new methodology was a new experience for me since generally when I sow in the traditional way I do the sowing work on the same day, in the case of the double row it took me 8 days to finish it, which it was a bit difficult since I haven´t had planted corn so close between them. I was a little afraid about this planting method but I did it anyway and always thought about the debt I had with the organization I kept going. The finance received from Self – Help International was not enough to buy all of the input that we were told during the training sessions, since in that year the inputs prices were higher than previous years. I worked with those inputs who managed to buy more, the support of the technician was even greater to deal with all of my concerns. His assistance was very helpful to realize when we should apply the inputs, fertilizers and herbicides to obtain a good production.

Still, I really mistrusted this planting method since I saw the corn very close between each other and I made a comment "this corn is not going to have a good yield, it is going to be burned because its to close between them" I was surprised when I saw that all the corn reached the baby corn stage and then the harvest time. I calculated that the planted area would yield approximately 1.82 tons, my surprise was when the result obtained was 2.95 tons all this without including 8.93 bushels that was stolen in the field, this yields results tells us that if we fertilize and use inputs in a timely manner in the crops and make good use of them, the result to be obtained is satisfactory. Of the 5 farmers that benefited, only 4 of us found the technique and the yields were similar. I also realized from the fact that the variety has a good weight at the time of packing the corn. But, despite having obtained a good performance on the yield, the price of corn was very low by that time since when there is a lot of corn the price gets lower imposed by buyers from other departments, mainly buyers are from the city of Masaya, which is about 160 miles from our region. At that time, the price was set at $12.33 (twelve dollars and 33/100 cents) for 2 bushels, so despite of the good harvest I got very little income, but even so I was able to pay the financing debt to Self - Help International, because I sold 2.72 out of the 2.95 tons I had harvested, and the rest of the corn I used 8.04 bushels for myself and my family's consumption and 1 bushel for seed purpose to be planted once again.

Now, that I had this experience I urge other farmers to use this sowing and the variety of corn since it is a very good variety and has characteristics that other types of corn do not have, such as protein, medium size, very good flavor and the main thing for us is that it does not present a peeled tip, it has very good coverage. Adding to this and speaking as a farmer, I tell others that we do not have to leave our country to improve our quality of life, but rather that we work our land and experiment with new techniques and technologies, being open minder farmers.

Currently I don´t want to change this new method of planting and I have been making several experience with this seed, right now I am carry out another activity in which I sow a smaller area where I give better care to the INTA NUTRADER maize to attend it in a better way and obtain seed to keep sowing  my own seed in the next sowing cycle, in this small area I do thinning, eliminating plants that has different characteristics from the others, such as plants that are small, bent, with a greater height, etc, I am eliminating the spike to avoid that in the next sowing the plants present that height, always with the advice of the technician and help of the organization SELF HELP INTERNATIONAL.

In this Primera cycle of this year 2023 I sowed in mid-June and worked giving a different sowing framework, since Winter is not as good as it´s supposed to, then, I sowed my small land in a distance of 30cm and put two grains of corn per blow in a row of 70 cm and with this planting frame I yielded 1.82 tons, in this new experiment I also included the bean crop stubble on my land to help it to improve the soil and therefore there is greater availability of nutrients, in addition to this I applied at the 10 days of planting the corn 35 pounds of urea and then at 25 days I applied a combination of 35 pounds of urea again plus 35 pounds of NPK 5-15-15 (N=Nitrogen, P= Phosphorus, K= Potassiumand the results were excellent.

I will explain a little about the activities that I carry out for the sowing that I see that have given me a good result for my plantation.

Well, once the beans are harvested, I carry out the plowing activity in the field, clean it, pack it and transfer it to my small house. But from this I use all the remaining brushwood and begin to spread it all over the field that I will use for the corn planting. This practice has given me good results and I have used it two sowings already, in the postrera cycle and now in the Primera cycle, this has helped me a lot to lower production costs, to improve the soils that I use and to improve the quality of my corn, obtaining a better quality product, healthier ears, better size and very good weight.

In this primera season I have only planted 0.85 acres of corn in the month of June waiting for the rains to fall since winter in the area should be for the month of May and this year it was not like regular Winter conditions. Now, on these days we have to play with the weather and times to avoid losing our crops. We are currently experiencing a different climatic situation than what we are normally used to, so I recommend being curious about the weather and pests to avoid havoc with our crops.

I am grateful for the organization and the support provided through the training, credits, planting materials and technical follow-up given during all this time, and I hope that it continues to support the rural sector in the same way, providing new technologies and useful techniques for the common good of the our communities improving productive yields and food security. Thank you.

Self Help International with the aim of improving and guaranteeing daily nutrition, it works hand to hand with farmers, providing them with basic grains rich in protein as corn with lysine and tryptophan, biofortified beans and rice with a high iron and zinc content; giving priority to them so that they could have high quality products on hand for their daily consumption.

In addition to this technology, Self - Help International provides planting techniques through training and demonstrations for the farmers to obtain higher yields and improve the product using existing sources on their farms.

This time we want to share with all of you the experience of Medardo who is responsible of a small community seed bank in the community of San Isidro in the municipality of San Carlos - Rio San Juan.

Medardo told us that he is originally from the city of Matagalpa which is 179.23 miles away from San Carlos, Rio San Juan, and that from a very young age he works in the agriculture helping his parents with field work, he commented that they were a family that used to emigrated frequently to the neighboring country of Costa Rica, looking for jobs opportunities, in that country they were hired on sugarcane and coffee farms and worked only for the season that the harvest of these crops lasted, then they returned to their native country Nicaragua.

He continued saying; in one of the many trips that my parents and I did to Costa Rica my father found out that the government of Nicaragua by that time was granting land to build houses, so my father made a request to obtain one and it was approved, receiving a plot of land and since then we settled in this place called San Isidro, being one of the founding families of this community. After having settled in the community years later my father decided to sell the house which was in the village because he wanted a bigger piece of land and with the money that he received from that selling he was able to purchased a lot of 3.40 acre in which we builded out home and the rest of the land we use it to work in agriculture.

Medardo keep going with his story saying: I live in the San Isidro Community located about 17.40 miles from San Carlos city head of Rio San Juan, married with two children who depend on me, I am passionate about what I do as a farmer and I also love music and I am part of a Mariachi group in my community.

I got to know Self Help International through an invitation from Mr. Benito (a member of the Agriculture Program) who organized a group to be trained on a new corn planting technique and the INTA – Nutrader maize variety with high protein content. Once the training was held the sowing implementation was carried out, and each farmer must implement a domonstration plot with 4 pounds of corn INTA – Nutrader donated by the Organization. In my case I did not do the planting as the agriculture program indicated us, because I didn´t have land available as the small plot I have was already planted the beans, even so I sowed the corn in between the beans to take advantage of the seed in some way, knowing that I was not going to have a good yield I still wanted to planted it to at least preserve the variety. From this planting of corn I obtained 2.67 bushels, managing to save seed for planting in the following planting season and the rest of the corn we (my family and I) used it for our consumption and we realized that this is a very tasty corn on the palate and my wife told me to plant more of this corn in the following planting season because she liked a lot.

After this benefit that we awarded with the corn, the group of farmers from the San Isidro community was benefited with Biofortified beans of the INTA Bioapante variety, we received a call from the technician Rodolfo Hernández who explained the purpose of these beans that basically was donated in a reasonable amount to obtain the necessary food for the family and in addition to saving seed for future plantings, the technician also gave us urged to form a small seed bank (a specific place where we can save part of our seed but together as a group to be used as sowing seed in next sowing seasons). The Agriculture Program Technician explained to us that 0.18 bushels of bean seeds would be given to each Farmer to implement a demonstration plot using the double row technique in order to save land and get higher yields from it plus save some seed in the place we recognized as Seed Bank storage place. The technician told us that we (the group) would not need to pay back anything to the organization, but that it would be great if we considered from now on to think and work as a group. We all agreed that it was such a great idea and that the only thing we had to take into consideration was to return back as payment the double amount of beans which at the end would be around 0.36 bushels to start the seed bank. At that moment we left in charge of the project to one person but unfortunately he got sick and had to leave the community to see his health, by the time the crop was ready to be storage there was noone to take care of it, then I assumed the responsibility of saving and caring for the seed to start shaping the seed bank, this seed was saved in a traditional way with debris from the same crop to protect the seed and avoid damage by pests, it was stored on plastic bags and sacks containers which are our common containers to protect seed in small quantities.

I took this big step because it is the first time I have seen a project of this nature in my community and I also saw that the people really wanted to work on something like this, since they saw it will benefit both themselves and other neighboring farmers families in the community.

The Seed Bank started with 3.93 bushels which was the Biofortified beans seed donated by Self – Help International to the 22 farmers members of the group, now the small bank has 7.86 bushels of biofortified beans in our inventory.

As part of our Seed Bank growth and agricultural extension policy, we agreed a cooperation and mutual aid between regions with a group of farmers from the North side of Nicaragua in where Self -Help International has also presence, as the San Isidro seed bank, formed by the Self-Help International, we have cooperated with a loan request for 3.04 bushels of INTA Bioapante seed beans, because those farmers were lack of good quality seed, which could be more resilience to extreme climate (dry region) and pests, therefore the La Herencia seed bank of the Las Marías community from Palacagüina, Madriz and two producers from the communities of La montañita and San José del Coyol from Condega,Estelí took the responsibility of manage and keep good track of our seed to later on pay us back in kind and with a double amount because the beans that we sent covered the needs of 11 farmers who established 4 acres of beans.

To ensure that we will receive our seed from the group of farmers from the North both groups made a Commitment that consists in the following.

We, the small Seed Bank of San Isidro is providing 3.04 bushels of biofortified beans seed to the La Herencia Seed Bank, which was delivered at the best time for them to sow in the month of May (because it is the time when they receive the most rainfall), and they will return the seed back to us with interest (double amount) in kind in the month of September (time when we are receiving less rain in our region of humid tropics in Rio San Juan), to benefit more families in our region and in this way strengthen our seed bank and continue establishing relationships with other communities in the country to guarantee better nutrition for Nicaraguan families. By everyone being in agreement, I just wanted to thank to Self – Help International on behalf of the San Isidro group for having supported us with high quality seed, knowledge and skills that we can apply in our daily planting process to improve the production and quality of the grains which is essential for our consumption, in addition to urging us to form the seed bank, which is a resource of high-quality variable seeds to support other small producers like us, and I want to tell you that we are willing to continue working with the organization to continue supporting the different communities in any part of the country so that they get to know the variety and keep the seed, hoping that they will keep it and continue to maintain this seed, since it is a beans with a good yield that is resistant to pests and diseases.

I am sure that by making this seed bank bigger with more varieties such as: rice, beans, corn, etc. we can grow and we would also like to have a space with better conditions to store our seed to prevent it from being contaminated, destroyed by pests or animals, for this I know that we must work hard, but for the moment I am very happy to know that we are already making our seed bank grow in some way since we are going to receive more from the producers in the North of the country who I am sure would be grateful for the new variety that they are receiving as well as we do.

So We are expecting good results from them up north and we hope to continue maintaining ties with them for the exchange of knowledge and seeds between the South Atlantic and North Zone regions of the country through Self-Help International, which has a presence in both territories. For my part and the group from the small seed bank of San Isidro, I appreciate all the support that Self – Help International have given us and we are going to grow in production and support other farmers like us.

Petronila is from the La Venada community located about 15.53 miles from the city of San Carlos, Río San Juan. She is 43 years old, married with 5 children, although four of her children are already married and live in their own.

Petronila comes from a family of farmers, hard workers, fighters, and lovers of the land. Since she was very young, she has worked in the fields with her father, being recognized for those jobs throughout the whole community. She did not had the opportunity to attend school, having little literacy knowledge, but she does have a lot of knowledge related to agriculture from the practice she has had over the years, "I like what I do," she commented. Petronila does not have her own land to dispose of and sow, but she works on her father's land or rents to neighbors during planting seasons in order to have a place to sow variesties of grains for her to harvest them to survive, she says that she has never had to emigrate to other community or coutries due to lack of work, she does everything what it is necessary for her and her family to survive, working the land along with her husband on neighboring farms doing field work such as: planting any variety of grains, sawing wood, clean the land, and harvesting the sowing.

Petronila recounted her experiences of working with Self-Help International by saying:

The Agriculture Program Officer was talking with my sister who is part of the Women's Empowerment Program group promoted by this organization, then my sister told me that he was a technician who works with farmers (men and women) and that he was promoting the new double row planting technique using the QPM corn variety (High Quality Protein Corn), this project seemed very interesting to me, and even though I have never liked being in those groups, I suggested to my sister to form a group where I could participate on and learn this new planting system and also to obtain the new INTA - Nutrader corn variety.

We (my sister and I) formed a group of 8 farmers (5 men and 3 women) including me, we had a visit from the technician once againg, but this time it was to explain us what the work would be and let us know everything related with the INTA Nutrader corn variety, and the implementation of the double row technique for better use of the land and its yields.

Afterwards, we (each group member) received a donation of 4 pounds of the INTA Nutrader corn variety and the Program technician along with us implemented a demonstration plot on the land of one of the members. Two weeks later I sewed my corn in an area that my father lent me to carry out this project, this is the first time that I have carried out this type of sowing (double row planting technique), this new methodology takes more time to sow since it doubles the amount of seed and it took me a whole day to achieved it "it's incredible" since generally when planting the same amount of corn in the traditional way it would normally take me a few hours, but also I know that the yield would also be low if I did the tradictional way. And, in the case of the double row technique I was specting higher yield.

I want to emphasize that everything we do in the planting process is done manually and traditionally eventhought it was if we implement the double row planting method, I always kept my plot clean of weeds using my machete as the only tool and the only application of inputs that I managed to do was the application of a small portion of urea (chemical fertilizer) due to lack of money, but at least with this application I will have a higher yield (thats what I was specting).

In some point I doubting at this type of planting (double row) method and asked myself if this double row methodology would really work, because I saw that there were too many plants in a very little space. But the first thing that surprised me was to see that this variety is quick to give its products compared to the ones I have had experience with, because I kept track of the days from when I planted this corn until the plant began to give ears, I counted the days and the corn was ready after 60 days of the planting date, in addition it shows good coverage on the corn which prevents ear rot before being harvested, these are important characteristics to take into account when we want higher yields.

Even with all the setbacks we had this year with the climatic situation where the rains have been very pronounced in the area, making it difficult to dry the grain, I noticed that this variety is resistant and despite the adversities. At the end I harvest 6 quintals (qq's) (10.70 bushels) of corno ut of the 4 pounds of INTA – Nutrader corn received from Self – Help International.

Out of the 10.70 bushels of corn that I harvested, I selected ½ bushel to be use as seed for the next next planting season and storaged it into plastic Coke beverage containers which is an ermetic container, the remain of corn 10.20 bushels were for my family consumption.

From what I have learned and experienced with Self – Help International, I have deduced that if I use the same variety of corn, and follow the same double-row sowing process, and give the appropriate technical management, I can achieve double yield of what I usually obtained with my traditional sowings process, which is why I have planning to plant in the next season planting ½ mz (0.86 acres) of land even though I have to rent this area as I don´t own land on my own, but I considered that it is worthy to make this type of changes and investment on my life as I know I will get more yield meaning more benefits (I can have enought corn for me and my family daily meal plus I can raise some chickens, pigs) wich can allow me to sell them in the future and obtain extras incomes.

I also obtained from Self Help International the donation of 10 pounds of Biofortified beans (INTA Bioapante) variety, which, like the corn, it adapts to the climate where I live, this variety have good characteristics of resistance to pests and good load of the earn, I cannot comment much on this one yet, since it is still in the drying stage, but I hope to be able to harvest enough to save seed to continue the reproductions of it for my family feeding purposes, and to share with other farmers in my region as agreed with the Agriculture Program Technician so that they could also have the benefit of this new variety of beans. As I mentioned above, the heavy rains affected the planting of beans in our region and with this new variety that Self-Help International provided us, we intend to implement a Community Seed Bank where other farmers can receive this type of seed for the next planting season and so on keep working with this new strategy to face any shortage of seed in the future.

I am grateful to Self – Help International for the training sessions, techniques and technologies you taught us, I hope to continue working with you and I want to let you know that I will be always available for any event as I like to learn new techniques that will benefit the production.

Thank you for your support for the most vulnerable sector because agriculture is a risk that must be taken to produce food, exposed to different climatic situations that are sometimes favorable or unfavorable and thanks to the help you give through new varieties resistant to these climatic phenomena we can cope with all this.

Joel's parents used to live in a community named El Fajardo in a very remote area, but the community was evacuated and moved to another community named Never Oporta in the area of San Miguelito near to the main town due to the war situation in Nicaragua back in the 1980s. Mr. Joel was born in this new community (Never Oporta) and has lived there since then. He is now 37 years old, married and with two children (one boy and a girl).

He is a small-scale farmer and has a small business (grocery store) in his home that his wife operates. Joel completed three out of five years of high school, but he was not able to finish high school because he had to work to help his parents. He emigrated to the neighboring country Costa Rica where lived and worked for 5 years, saved up some money, and was able to return back to Nicaragua. He bought a piece of land of 2.5 manzanas (4.3 acres), where he is now currently working. On this land Mr. Joel is working exclusively with organic products. By following organic practices, he is able to achieve a good yield among all the crops he cultivates, and he likes that it’s both environmentally-friendly, and he doesn’t face the high costs of purchasing chemical inputs. 

After a long time of work and efforts, Mr. Joel was able to get to a level where now he has been recognized by other farmers in the area, and he is a great example for other farmers to follow up and learn from. Now, Joel’s small plot of land is a model plot of using the Organic Agriculture method. He has cocoa, coconut, and fruit trees around the perimeter of his land, and uses the rest of the land to cultivate basic grains such as: rice, beans and corn. 

Since all of the planting process has been done with organic products, this plot now is considered a chemical-free area and it is now in the process of being recognized and certified by the IPSA Institution (Institute for Protection and Agricultural Health), and by getting this certification he said, ¨I can be a farmer that will be know for being one of the first in my region to get this type of credit and recognition.¨  

And, he continued ¨I consider myself a leader, since I am the one who organize most of the activities related to the benefits of our people in my community it doesn´t matter if it is for sports, religious and agricultural purposes. I play an important role so that other families can obtain the benefit of all programs that come to develop my community and as a consequence our quality of life. 

Joel recounted his experiences working with Self-Help International, saying:

“I learned of Self – Help International and its Agriculture program thanks to the visit of his Program officer Rodolfo Hernandez, who came to my community Never Oporta to met me and shared all regarding this program, it technology, techniques, benefits and requirements that farmers need to fit to become members of this Agriculture Program.    

“After having this conversation with the Self – Help technician, I was ready to share all this information with several farmers from my community, among them men and women, to become a large group who would received from Self-Help International all of those benefits, as we never had heard anything like what the technician was saying: that we could use less land and obtain the same amount of yield as if using larger piece of land. So, I was able to organize a large group of 28 farmers. 

“Once the entire group was organized and trained with the benefits and characteristics of the INTA - Nutrader corn variety, and the double row planting technology, each one of the farmers received a donation of 4 pounds QPM corn, then was implemented a double row demonstration plot to learn the process of the technique to see futures results. 

“My personal experience with the Double Row Technique was great since I have changed the old way of planting corn to the new one learned ¨The Double Row Technique¨ taught by the Self – Help International technician, and, as a result I obtained higher yields. What I liked the most about the variety of this type of corn QPM, INTA – Nutrader is a characteristic that all small producers dreams to see some day, which is: to see the ear all covered not showing its tip, which means that the coverage prevents the ear from rotting when there is a lot of rain, which is mainly our case conditions, as in this area of the country we have more rain than other places. And, thanks to this new condition our corn will survive those heavy and permanent rains. In addition to the size of the ear, the height of the plant makes it easy to harvest. 

I took into account all the recommendations that the technician gave during the training, and out of the 4 pounds of corn I received from Self-Help International, I obtained a yield of 3 quintales (5.4 bushels). This allows me to keep reproducing this type of corn because from those three quintales, I will save enough seed to plant one manzana of corn. We usually use 60 pounds of corn to plant one manzana, and the rest of the corn will be used for our own consumption. My family and I, like all of the Nicaraguan people, survive mainly on corn products such as: tortillas, cereals, nacatamales, tamales, chichas, ect all made with green and dry corn. I am satisfied with this yield result since I considered that if with four pounds of corn I obtained three quintals (qqs) of corn, then if I plant a manzana of corn I would obtain 48 qq´s of corn. This is an estimate, and if this really happens, it will be as great as we usually obtain from one manzana just 20 qq´s using the old way of planting. So, if I get 48 qq´s that mean that will be double or it could be even more. So, my next purpose is to plant one manzana of corn in the next season, following the new technique and all of the recommendations of the technician, and I will let you know my experience. 

We (the technician and I) have monitored the other members of the group and they shared with us that they are all satisfied with the variety of corn and the yields they obtained from it.

In addition to the QPM corn, Self – Help International also donated biofortified seeds of rice and beans, but we will see the yields of these next year. I am grateful for Self – Help International since in my community 90% of its people are farmers dedicated to working the land and with this great support we will be able to grow, development our skills through new technologies and techniques that are in favor of the development of rural communities.

I am grateful to the organization for having provided this donation for the most vulnerable families in the region and I urge other farmers to keep reproducing the seeds that Self – Help International have donated to us, since this is a benefit that not everyone can obtain, therefore the seed must be saved to continue to keep our foods rich in protein and minerals that help us maintain our healthy body conditions.

Without further words, I want to say goodbye but not before thanking all of your great support and donations to us and we hope to keep working with you to continue improving our way of working the land with new techniques and technologies that help develop our yields and quality of life. In addition to this, we also hope that you will support other farmers so that they can continue to grow and improve their land in following practices of conservation agriculture.

Mario is from the community of El Tamboral Sur, a municipality of San Miguelito, and is currently the leader of 17 farmers in that community.

Mario recently shared his experience with the Self-Help International staff. He said, “This is the first time I have seen the double row technique using the INTA Nutrader corn variety. The experimental plot that I established was well cared for and the variety seemed excellent to me. The plant is small and it adapts to different climatic conditions.”

As a farmer, Mario first prepared the land by removing all the weeds. He explained, “I did not apply any fertilizer. I just kept cleaning the corn to keep it free of weeds and the results obtained were unbelievable.”

Many other farmers in his community did not have much confidence in the double row planting system that was taught by the Self-Help technician. However, Mario soon saw a big difference between the new technique and traditional planting methods.”I noticed a change in the growing stage and the yields were better so we now can accept that the technique has very good results. This type of corn has a sweet flavor and is desired by the children. Tortillas have a very good taste and the family liked it so much that my wife and children did not want to eat the other variety of corn. I was upset because they were not going to let me save seeds to plant the next planting season,” he said.

 At the end of harvest, Mario estimated that one manzana of this type of corn with the double row technique yields 72 QQ which is double compared to just 30 QQs per manzana using the old method.

Mario encourages other farmers to implement the double row technique and to use the INTA – Nutrader corn because it helps improve yields, provides a higher percentage of proteins, and it is suitable for the area with limited land resources. He commented, “With this plot experiment, we have realized that this variety of corn produces cobs without the need to apply any fertilizer which is helpful because fertilizer is difficult to obtain due to the distance of the agriservice and the expensive prices to buy agrochemical products. I want to thanks the Self-Help organization for provided us with the skill and knowledge through training to continue to improve the yields in the rural sector in Nicaragua.”

He also invites other farmers to continue using this planting technique since the results are very good as long as farmers follow the precise management necessary during the different stages of the plant. Mario added, “This type of corn incorporates vitamins and minerals into our diet, necessary for the growth and development of growing children, through the basic grains that the organization donates to different families in the agricultural sector. I will continue working hand in hand with the organization to continue improving our planting techniques and acquiring more knowledge and technologies that help us improving our production.”