FONTAGRO launched its webinar series with a presentation by Néstor López Nolasco, leader of the project “Biointensive farming for rural families in the Dry Corridor”, who summed up three years of work in 105 communities in Nicaragua and Honduras. After 34 training workshops and 206 follow-up sessions, 953 farmers, 514 of them women, set up biointensive gardens, 493 of them with efficient irrigation. Altogether they comprise 2,120 beds covering at least 10,000 m², producing 76.5 tonnes of food a year, a figure that will keep growing with new gardens, crops and water-harvesting systems.

The project also strengthened 46 seed banks supplying 1,475 farmers, 822 of them women; trained 189 basic-level promoters; created 11 agroecological reference centres where 41 students completed internships; and brought together 494 specialists from at least 11 countries at national meetings. The method is now part of teaching at UNA and UNAH, and its lessons are being replicated in other areas. “With biointensive farming we are adapting to climate change, because we work in places with dry, stony soils that lack nutrients,” sums up the project’s impact story.

🔗 News: Join the webinar – Biointensive farming, a food alternative in the Central American Dry Corridor (in Spanish)
🔗 Impact story: Biointensive project, a food alternative in the Central American Dry Corridor (in Spanish)
📄 Final technical report (PDF, in Spanish)
📄 Presentation at the 14th Annual Technical Monitoring Workshop, Dominican Republic 2019 (PDF, in Spanish)