Since 2007 Puente has worked with over 400 Oaxacan farmers from indigenous communities to cultivate amaranth using sustainable and ecological practices.

Puente’s Eco-Amaranth program promotes the ecological production of amaranth in rural communities through agricultural training, technical assistance and farmer-to-farmer exchanges. Using a participatory approach, the Eco-Amaranth program presents subsistence farmers with the opportunity to develop a healthy food source and to generate additional revenue for their families. The program collaborates with the Healthy Families team to contribute to food sovereignty and to improve family nutrition by promoting amaranth, a native crop rich in nutrients and with economic potential.

Eco-Amaranth Objectives

• Amaranth is reintroduced as a crop by participant farmers, diversifying and enriching both their household diets and their revenue sources.
• Farmers work together to produce amaranth using ecological, locally appropriate and sustainable methods that replenish the soil and minimize damage to the environment .
• Each family will produce enough amaranth for self-consumption
• Local amaranth markets are developed to create economic opportunities for the farmers as well as ensure the availability of amaranth for consumption by the community.

Eco-Amaranth Program Approach:

Phase I of the program begins with a dialogue with groups of 10-25 farmers, during which they share their experiences with amaranth, their expectations for the program and also analyze climatic, environmental and cultural conditions that could affect the crop. Working as a group, they help to generate local solutions that favor a successful harvest. Based on the findings of this diagnostic process, the group comes up with a work plan for the coming year, and together with the Puente team, designs a set of eight workshops whereby they will learn to plant, grow and harvest amaranth using ecological methods.

During the diagnostic process, Puente also identifies which farmers have the land size, desire and capacity to grow amaranth for income generating purposes. In the first year however, the purpose is to educate the participants about organic amaranth farming techniques using a demonstration plot donated by the community. At this stage therefore, farmers are encouraged to dedicate only a small area of individual land to test amaranth farming methods and the seed varieties most adapted to the zone, thereby mitigating some of the risks of working with a new crop.

The first year of the program thus focuses on the use of amaranth for self-consumption. The groups work closely with Puente’s Healthy Families program team who provide additional workshops on the nutritional value of amaranth and how to include both the leaf and grain in local dishes.

Local actors, or “Community Promoters,” are selected according to their leadership qualities and knowledge about amaranth. They receive specialized monthly trainings by Puente on agronomical techniques, community organization and leadership. The Community Promoters, together with the participant farmers, contribute to the design of all strategies to ensure that the program is relevant to the realities of each community. They also have an important role in troubleshooting individual problems of the participant farmers on their land throughout the growth cycle.

By year two, some of the participants begin to cultivate enough amaranth to produce an excess. Puente coordinates a participatory group session with those farmers to look at the commercial benefits of amaranth and to determine how to distribute the harvest most beneficially. Options include storage for future consumption, sale of seeds, processing into artisanal products etc. If desired, Puente helps farmers gain access to the supply chain by providing workshops on amaranth transformation, processing and commerce and, together with Puente’s Healthy Families program, opening up opportunities for local resale within the community. Puente has also developed relations with Oaxacan social enterprises to obtain fair price purchasing agreements for the farmers.

With growing public understanding about the nutritional benefits of amaranth, it is increasingly being commercialized in baby porridges, breakfast cereals and health foods worldwide. This lift in demand has raised the market price per kilo of amaranth considerably, meaning that it has great potential as an income generation source for poor farmers.

The Ecological Production of Amaranth

Puente does not encourage the use of costly chemical fertilizers or pesticides but instead shows farmers how to make their own homemade, organic farm supplies, using ingredients that can be sourced locally. This helps low-resource farmers avoid buying expensive chemical fertilizers and pesticides and prevents long-term damage to their health, the soil and water supply. Techniques include the use of bio-fertilizers, worm farming, miccorizae (symbiotic mushrooms) and organic bio insecticides when necessary. These methods are useful for amaranth farming, but are also skills that can be applied to other cultivations.

Evaluating the Program

Puente is committed to a participatory monitoring and evaluation approach to measure the progress of our work and the impact on the communities we serve. In 2009, Puente’s programmatic team received intensive capacity-building training in Monitoring and Evaluation. Participants are engaged at every stage of the process, from the definition of indicators that will measure the success of the program to the final analysis of results and how they could be improved in future years.

Partnerships

At an organizational level, Puente has developed relations with partner organizations that are interested in community development and in replicating Puente’s amaranth food sovereignty model, not only in communities across Oaxaca but also in other parts of Mexico. Puente is also leading a coalition to advocate that the Secretary of Agriculture recognize amaranth as a strategic crop in Oaxaca, while protecting the rights of the small amaranth farmer. Puente sees collaborations with other organizations as strategic to assure the growth and sustainability of the program.

By stressing the value of this native grain, Puente blends a respect for indigenous traditions with the demands of modern life. Puente’s programs integrate amaranth consumption, production and commercialization to provide a comprehensive approach to reintroducing amaranth into the diet and landscape of rural Oaxaca.