Innovative Program in Ecuador Helps Farmer Get Big Results From a Small Garden
20 October 2005
For doña Maria Paralta, diversifying her crops leads to better diet, funds for education.
If you are fortunate enough to get an invitation to doña María Peralta’s house in Otavalo for dinner, you are in for an impressive meal. The 60-year-old farmer, an indigenous Quechua woman, offers a table full of food: corn, beans, potatoes, vegetable soup flavored with aromatic herbs, guinea pig, and fruit juices. These are just a few of the products she grows in her little garden behind her house.
It’s a pretty small garden—60 square yards--which is roughly the size of a tennis court. But it has made a big difference in the lives of doña Maria and her children. With the money she gets from selling animals and vegetables, she buys books and uniforms for her daughters Clarita and Juanita, who are 10 and 16, and her 20-year-old son, Angelo. Rosita, the oldest at 23, not only finished high school, but will also be the first in the family to attend university, and will study public administration.
“Everything we have comes from this garden,” doña Maria said. “My older children couldn't go to school when they were little, but I was able to pay for school for them when they were older,” she says proudly.
Her business is part of a family garden project that Oxfam America supports with a grant to the Center for Pluricultural Studies (CEPCU). It’s a small piece of an innovative development plan for the entire San Pablo Lake basin designed to reduce pollution in the lake, improve the soil and reduce erosion, and help the 30,000 indigenous people in the area to improve their diet, health, access to education, and standard of living.
Before taking part in the family garden project, doña Maria only grew about five different crops. She didn’t have the money to buy seeds to diversify her operation, nor did she know how to grow different vegetables. Thanks to small loans from CEPCU, she has expanded her production, and started raising cows and guinea pigs.
“It is a privilege to have participated in this project because it has given us breathing room, and now we have better food,” doña Maria said, gesturing to the delicious meal she prepared.
