Semilla Nueva

Semilla Nueva is a group of farmers, professionals, students, and volunteers who have come together to find root problems in Guatemala and tackle them in a sustainable, culturally appropriate way. Our solutions may not be flashy, but they are tested alongside partner farmers and shared through key local institutions to foster long-term, large-scale change in the fight for improved nutrition and food security, economic well-being, and local ownership of agricultural development projects for the poorest farming communities.

THE PROBLEM

Guatemala has the highest rate of malnutrition in all of Latin America, and ranks third in the world. The majority of the nation’s poor are rural farming families who depend entirely on subsistence farming on marginal lands. They have little access to support to improve their incomes or the quality of food they consume. On top of all this, drought has had detrimental effects on the nation for the past three years in a row, stripping families of food security and the means by which they make a living.

Many agricultural technologies that have been introduced mean well, but just don’t work in the cultural context of Guatemala because they fail to listen to the farmers in the community. In addition, institutions in Guatemala regularly work in silos and rarely share their strategies or collaborate, viewing one another as competition for external funding. This duplicates resources and creates programs that are characteristically inefficient and overly political.

 

YOUR SUPPORT HELPS US TACKLE THESE PROBLEMS

Semilla Nueva continues to grow and our projects this year promise to impact thousands of farmers and their families, along with policy on the national level.

 
A few highlights for 2016:

Semilla Nueva will be distributing Quality Protein Maize seed to reach 3,000 to 4,000 families in southern rural Guatemala. These seeds are open-pollinated, which means these seeds can be saved and shared, contributing to nutritious food security for many harvests to come. See our blog to learn more about the potential of QPM.

Semilla Nueva is continuing the study on Quality Protein Maize’s effectiveness on malnutrition in Guatemalan communities -the first study of its kind to provide statistically significant results.

Semilla Nueva, as new Secretary of the Plataforma BioFORT, a collaboration to spread highly nutritious biofortified seeds throughout the nation, is leading collaborations between 14 partners and counting from the non-profit, international development, and government sectors.

Semilla Nueva and partnering farmers have influenced the mayors of Santo Domingo and Champerico to take ownership of the local community agricultural committees, signing on to fund community coordinators for the entirety of 2016. Our team continues to work alongside farmer advocates to create better systems of local support.

You can be a part of these projects and contribute to real change on the ground. Your support allows farmers and their families can take control of their futures through agricultural solutions while supporting institutional collaboration to bring change to all of Guatemala.

At Semilla Nueva we thrive because of an incredibly dedicated and enthusiastic group of supporters who believe in the power of our work. We owe our success to people like you and we appreciate your interest in our organization through Idaho Gives!