¿Cual pais produce mas papas? (China)
¿Y cual pais produce menos papas? (Vatican City!)
Jajaja. This is a funny joke in Spanish because "la papa" means potato, and "el papa" means pope. Yes, we did ask people about how their pope cultivation was going.
After our initial difficulties finding farmers to talk to in Xela, we ended up having a really successful day of interviews. A couple of UC Davis Horticulatural Collaborative Research Support Program (HORT CRSP) contacts introduced us to their contacts in Guatemala, and we spent the day interviewing potato farmers with a local agronomist who works for Frito-Lay. Everyone here has been incredibly generous with their time: people who have never met us have spent hours talking to us about the project, introducing us to their friends and neighbors, and generally helping us out.
This morning, Rolando took us around to visit a variety of potatoes farmers. We saw large scale, completely mechanized farms (large scale in Guatemala is very different from in the US - the biggest potato farm here is about 40 hectares), and small-scale, hand-cultivated farms in the hills. This area has very sandy soil, so potatoes grow well. Frito-Lay contracts with potato farmers, which gives the farmers a guaranteed price for their crops, as well as an easily accessible source of information about new practices and pest and disease management. In addition to their contracts, many farmers also produce a small quantity of potatoes for the fresh market, where prices change constantly. One major theme we've noticed in the interviews is farmers' total lack of negotiating power in the market. Often (especially in rural areas, where most people live), there is one buyer or one market, so the farmers can either sell at that price or not sell at all. Overall, the contracted potato farmers seem like they are doing much better than the average Guatemalan farmer (and definitely aren't representative of typical info access), but it was interesting to see how this particular production model worked. It was also fun to spend the day with Rolando and learn about potatoes!
In the afternoon, we took a trip over to Almolonga, a town about 20 minutes away from Xela. We passed through Almolonga on our way to some hot springs on Sunday, and were blown away by the size of the vegetables that people were growing: head-sized cabbages, gigantic (rolling pin sized) carrots, and radish that looked like apples...
Almolonga is in a beautiful valley with a lot of available ground water (almost all the production we've seen has been rain-fed, and water is a major constraint). Instead of growing corn and beans, people in Almolonga grow an incredible variety of vegetables, many of which they export to El Salvador. We didn't have any really solid contacts, but we were able to talk to an agropecuario (not sure how to translate - someone who sells chemicals and seeds) and a couple of farmers we met by wandering around. Unfortunately, we weren't able to get the story of how or when vegetable production started in Almolonga - everyone said that people have always grown veggies, and they've always exported them to El Salvador. The ag information channels were a lot more similar to what we heard about in Uspantan: generally, people go to the chemical salesman if they have some kind of pest of disease problem and need information.
Clearly, there are some pretty major drawbacks in going to an input seller for your information, but there don´t seem to be a lot of other options. The people we talked to did mention testing different products themselves (on small areas of their fields) to see what worked, rather than trusting the salesmen, but there is still a lot of room for improved info dissemination.
We have one final interview tomorrow morning, and then we will head back to El Quiche to spend the day with a Peace Corps volunteer in Canilla.
Kelsey Barale, graduate student, International Agricultural Development, UC Davis
Elana Peach-Fine, PhD candidate, Plant Pathology, UC Davis
¿Y cual pais produce menos papas? (Vatican City!)
Jajaja. This is a funny joke in Spanish because "la papa" means potato, and "el papa" means pope. Yes, we did ask people about how their pope cultivation was going.
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| Elana in potato field |
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| Elana, Don Salvador & Kelsey |
This morning, Rolando took us around to visit a variety of potatoes farmers. We saw large scale, completely mechanized farms (large scale in Guatemala is very different from in the US - the biggest potato farm here is about 40 hectares), and small-scale, hand-cultivated farms in the hills. This area has very sandy soil, so potatoes grow well. Frito-Lay contracts with potato farmers, which gives the farmers a guaranteed price for their crops, as well as an easily accessible source of information about new practices and pest and disease management. In addition to their contracts, many farmers also produce a small quantity of potatoes for the fresh market, where prices change constantly. One major theme we've noticed in the interviews is farmers' total lack of negotiating power in the market. Often (especially in rural areas, where most people live), there is one buyer or one market, so the farmers can either sell at that price or not sell at all. Overall, the contracted potato farmers seem like they are doing much better than the average Guatemalan farmer (and definitely aren't representative of typical info access), but it was interesting to see how this particular production model worked. It was also fun to spend the day with Rolando and learn about potatoes!
In the afternoon, we took a trip over to Almolonga, a town about 20 minutes away from Xela. We passed through Almolonga on our way to some hot springs on Sunday, and were blown away by the size of the vegetables that people were growing: head-sized cabbages, gigantic (rolling pin sized) carrots, and radish that looked like apples...
Almolonga is in a beautiful valley with a lot of available ground water (almost all the production we've seen has been rain-fed, and water is a major constraint). Instead of growing corn and beans, people in Almolonga grow an incredible variety of vegetables, many of which they export to El Salvador. We didn't have any really solid contacts, but we were able to talk to an agropecuario (not sure how to translate - someone who sells chemicals and seeds) and a couple of farmers we met by wandering around. Unfortunately, we weren't able to get the story of how or when vegetable production started in Almolonga - everyone said that people have always grown veggies, and they've always exported them to El Salvador. The ag information channels were a lot more similar to what we heard about in Uspantan: generally, people go to the chemical salesman if they have some kind of pest of disease problem and need information.
Clearly, there are some pretty major drawbacks in going to an input seller for your information, but there don´t seem to be a lot of other options. The people we talked to did mention testing different products themselves (on small areas of their fields) to see what worked, rather than trusting the salesmen, but there is still a lot of room for improved info dissemination.
We have one final interview tomorrow morning, and then we will head back to El Quiche to spend the day with a Peace Corps volunteer in Canilla.
Kelsey Barale, graduate student, International Agricultural Development, UC Davis
Elana Peach-Fine, PhD candidate, Plant Pathology, UC Davis
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