Seed Distribution A whole pallet filled with thousands of vegetable and flower seeds came in the container shipment. These one-year-old, high quality seeds were donated by The Seed Corps from Santa Rosa, California. We talked to representatives from several nongovernmental organizations in the area who recommended selling the seeds rather than giving them away, thus encouraging people to value them more. It was a difficult decision for us. We tried selling them very inexpensively, at three packets for a shilling (12½ cents, U.S.). It worked well. The villagers could afford this price - they didn't just grab handfuls but selected carefully. The Maya diet is fairly culturally restricted here, primarily consisting of corn, beans, and rice, with meat when it is affordable. A limited number of vegetables are commonly grown: peppers, cabbages, onions, carrots, cucumbers, and watermelons. We were able to provide several varieties of each, which we hope will contribute to diversity in the village's on-going seed bank. For example, farmers reported cucumbers twice as long as the standard variety and watermelons twice as sweet. Some of the village farmers are avid experimenters. We gave them for free many varieties of familiar and new vegetables that they were willing to try, hoping that their experience and word-of-mouth reporting will eventually lead to the acceptance of new varieties of vegetables (and improvement of the diet) in the village. A friend of ours from the village, Zenovia Ash, took seeds to sell at the district-wide farmers' market in Punta Gorda on market days twice a week for a month. Many Maya from the outlying villages and a lot of the residents of Punta Gorda bought seeds (at the same price). Volunteers from Plenty International, a U.S.-based organization working to improve agriculture and diet in the region, will use our seeds in the vegetable gardens they are planting with the village primary schoolchildren. Finally, and perhaps most important in the long term, the director of the agricultural program at the new high school, created two years ago to serve the Maya youth in the district, is very enthusiastic about using our seeds. He plans to conduct trials of vegetable varieties with his students to learn which grow well in this climate and which are most likely to be accepted into the villagers' regular diets. The many packets of flower seeds were a wonderful surprise, and many women, men, and even children were thrilled to try them out. We gave the women at the mother's day festival three packets in their relief bags, and they bought a lot more. Since then, folks have been coming in pretty steadily for more. Strolling around the village, we are enjoying the colorful results everywhere. Many thanks to The Seed Corps, and to Athenian Holly Dalman of Big Huge, who coordinated the lengthy paperwork process for the seed shipment on a very tight time schedule. Back to Newsletter Table of Contents |