Dig In! Improving Nutrition in Developing Countries Through Home and Community Gardens

2015 Wimpfheimer-Guggenheim Essay Competition Winner

By: Jennifer Brewer, RDN


Guatemala: the land of eternal spring. Where the ground is fertile, the rain plentiful and the temperatures perfect for growing a variety of luscious soul and body healing food. Yet in this picturesque, fertile land people are suffering from a myriad of health problems. Stunted growth, eye problems, digestion, mental insufficiency, dental, headaches and overall decrease of energy are just part of the problems associated with the majority of the people who live in the outlying, generally underserved areas of this beautiful nation. (1,2,3) It seems cruelly ironic that people surrounded with such ideal parameters for luscious fresh fruits and vegetables have not only never eaten such food, but don’t know how to grow it in their fertile fields. The foods that do grow naturally are mostly used for export (so that we Americans can get the benefit from their fertile growing conditions, while they themselves remain undernourished).

The irony doesn’t stop there. Many well-meaning groups have gone down and given different health and wellness lessons throughout the years. They teach the importance of vitamins and minerals for healthy living. They pass out vitamin and mineral supplements in the form of pills. Then they leave. When the given supplies run out, the people are once again at a loss for the vital nutrients that their bodies need for optimal growth and function. When speaking with these people, they say that they can’t afford to buy the vitamin and mineral pills. They see a banana tree in the distance, and when questioned as to what benefit they can receive from eating the bananas, they simply shrug and have no idea that the much needed potassium could easily come from eating some of their own bananas, and thus preclude the need for taking that same nutrient in a pill form. They have no idea the pills are merely substitutes (and poor ones at that) for what they could get naturally, and very cheaply, through growing their own food, right in their own backyards or communities. This concept just hadn’t occurred to them, as they had never been taught the relationship between food, the vitamins and minerals contained therein and the human body.

One concept had been introduced to this community, and accepted very readily, however, and that is the concept of cheap (both monetarily, and nutritionally) snacks and pops. In the few community tiendas, there seemed always readily available sugary snacks and even soda pop. Yet one couldn’t find a carrot (or any other type of fresh produce) for miles around. Since dental hygiene is also underutilized in these communities, teeth problems run rampant, thus compacting the problem of introducing hard fruits and vegetables into their diets.

Furthermore, when doctors have come to help in clinics, they have been flooded with complaints of digestion, headaches, eye problems and petitioned for pills to help their symptoms (rather than being educated on ways to prevent the problems, many of which could be solved by proper nutrition).

Nutrition classes were thus introduced in many communities. People were taught the right way to eat, but one glaring problem still remained. In communities that have a literacy rate of 2% (no, that is not a misprint!), and employment rate not far better, money is scarce, and paying for costly produce in the markets of neighboring villages was simply not a viable option.

When we sat back and analyzed all of these issues together, we could see how interrelated the problems were, and how they all seemed to come back to the availability of healthy varieties of food. One such group, Family Humanitarian Expedition (FHe www.familyhumanitarian.org) was witnessing all of these problems and trying to find some solutions in their expeditions. I partnered with them in the fall of 2014, and began working on a gardening piece. Working with another registered dietitian, we set out to help improve the health of the people of Guatemala through both nutrition education and food availability programs, namely through helping them plant and cultivate community and home gardens.

For several months we had conference calls with the in country representative and the leaders of FHe as we worked to gather a committee to help with all of the different aspects of this project. Working with the desires of the people (namely needing seeds to grow food, lessons in how to grow them and learning how to preserve the extra food that was grown), we slowly worked out a program that would help them begin the road to improved nutrition through gardening techniques. Lesson plans were formed, garden plans were sent out and a program came to life!

The people of three different communities (Seritquiche, Seamac and Chijolom) in the Polochic region of Guatemala were informed that when we came down, they would receive valuable seeds to plant in their gardens if: 1) they had a plot prepared on their land, 2) they attended the nutrition and gardening classes each day (taught by registered dietitians and agriculture experts), and 3) helped plant the community garden. (For more information on lesson plans or preparation, email jenb@mycookkitchen.com).

The projected goals of the program were (and still are):

  1. Cultivate a community garden that can be used to help generate income by providing produce that can be sold in the market, the money being divided between the workers in the garden to help them be able to procure more seeds
  2. Help them receive the valuable lessons in both nutrition and gardening to be able plant and cultivate nutritionally dense foods for their families.
  3. Teach them how to dehydrate the extra food from their gardens to be able to have it last longer for them, and also provide yet another revenue stream for them to be able to sell these ‘innovative’ varieties of foods at the market.
  4. Teach them cooking methods to be able to actually utilize and ultimately eat these new foods, helping improve the overall nutrition and health of them and their families.

The summer expedition lasted for 10 days, and was packed with projects to help bring these overall program goals about. We worked between the three communities and the members of the community were extremely loyal to come to each lesson, work to plant their gardens and even had their individual garden plots ready to go! We took a ‘tour’ (read: hiking through the mountain ranges to get to each bamboo hut!) of some of their plots and were amazed to see the painstaking efforts they had gone through to clear areas of land around their houses (oftentimes clearing much brush and even cutting down some trees!) and even putting up fences around their plots to help keep the animals away from their precious gardens. All three communities planted amazing gardens, learned how to care for each of the varieties of plants and how to use them once the food was ready to harvest. We also taught them how to make dehydrators that could be used over their open fires to help dehydrate and preserve the extra food from their gardens.

We left the week in complete awe at what could be accomplished by having knowledgeable people in a committee (registered dietitians, and other agriculture experts) who have a vision to help bring a project from infancy to fruition. Three community gardens had been planted, and just under 200 families received a variety of seeds to help start their own family gardens (and estimated 150,000-175,000 individual seeds, including those in the community gardens!).

The December Expedition (the group FHe goes down two times each year) did some follow up on the garden and agriculture projects and were delighted to see that two out of the three community gardens were thriving, and well over half of the family garden plots were still going strong. One community had learned how to let the radish plant go to seed to be able to reuse those seeds and keep the radish crop growing. They had also sold to that date 40+ bunches of cilantro in the local market and used the money to procure more seeds.

We are already working with plans for the summer 2015 expedition, which will include more cooking classes on how to use the different types of produce that are grown as well as helping to build small table-top greenhouses for the families to help ward off different insects that have been affecting some of their plant starts. They can then sell the extra plant starts to generate some more income, as well as grow healthier plants which will produce more food for them to use to continue to improve their nutrition and overall health.

This program is not hard to do – it could be easily implemented in any number of developing countries, and tweaked to help solve a variety of nutrition and health related concerns in a vast array of communities around the world. All it takes is land, water, some seeds and someone willing to teach and train! “If you give a man a fish, you will feed him for a day. If you teach a man to fish, you will feed him for a lifetime.” -Ancient proverb.

Resources:

  • Kraemer and Rohloff. 2013. Guatemala. In Central America and the Caribbean: A Practical Guide for Global Health Workers (M Krasnoff, Ed). Dartmouth: University Press of New England.
  • Rohloff. 2014. Child Nutrition-after the first 1000 days. Global Health Hub. Accessed on Nov. 15, 2014.
  • Flood, D. 2014. Height and herencia in rural Guatemala. 2014. Global Health Hub. Accessed on Nov. 15, 2014.