Farmers face dire poverty

from the Daily Targum

Nasreen Hussain / Correspondent

Being low on money is a common scenario for the average college student, but the lack of extra spending cash pales in comparison when viewed from a global perspective.

More than 1.5 million Nicaraguans face hunger and poverty, said Elvin Castellon Alvarado, a Nicaraguan farmer who spoke at the Second Reformed Church on the College Avenue campus Wednesday.

Of those 1.5 million, 47 percent are living in extreme poverty, which is an entire family living on 70 cents a day. The remaining 53 percent live on about $2 a day, he said.

More than 30 students, faculty members and members of the public gathered to hear Alvarado speak about reforestation, sustainable agriculture, food sovereignty and fair trade.

"[Alvarado's] topic is important because food security and food sovereignty affect every living person on this planet," said Tejas Kadia, an Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy sophomore. "Everybody has the right to food by virtue of being born, but over 850 million people are malnourished."

In the 1960s, more than 80 percent of land was taken for the use of cotton. Now no other crops can be grown because, the soil, once fertile, is now sterile, Alvarado said.

By 1970, Alvarado said, 30 percent of Nicaraguan forests were destroyed. Alvarado described this as a massacre.

Because of these changes, as well as numerous others, Nicaraguans are facing major problems with food production.

Livingston College senior Michael Magarelli said he came to the lecture because he is interested in social justice and wanted to learn about projects being done to help the local poor in Nicaragua.

Alvarado, the director of the Federation for the Development of Peasant Farmers based in Nicaragua, and other members of the organization are doing numerous things to help the Nicaraguan public.

Alvarado said from 2003 to 2004, FEDICAMP helped to plant 1.2 million trees to help with reforestation.

The organization also helps build more efficient kitchens for Nicaraguan families.

The traditional Nicaraguan kitchen is a large, open hearth that burns firewood. Because of the constant smoke and ash produced from these hearths, many women and children suffer from respiratory problems. Alvarado said the newer kitchens are more energy efficient, healthier and cheaper to maintain than the traditional kitchen.

One other thing FEDICAMP did was to set up large wells in which rainwater falls so the women do not have to go far to get water to wash and clean.

Alvarado said during these various projects FEDICAMP brings the resources and tools and the local community brings the manpower.

He stressed FEDICAMP is meant to help within communities for those communities so, as a result, many times the community themselves help with projects.

Students said they were moved by the extent of the community involvement.

"Here we have some of the poorest people in the world practicing sustainable agriculture while the people in the U.S. expect it to come about by some giant corporation," Mangarelli said.

Although these issues are important to the people of Nicaragua, the United States needs to also realize their role as part of the problem, Kadia said.

"If we are interested in truly tackling poverty, we must change our ways with subsidies, or acknowledge that our free trade agreements are unfair," she said. "Driving small-scale farmers off the land in other countries reduces that country's food sovereignty."

At the end of the lecture and a short question and answer session, a slideshow showed the natural and man-made beauty of Nicaragua, as well as the people of the country.

The lecture was conducted in Spanish but interpreted by Damian Suarez, a first-year graduate student in the Spanish department.

Jim Burchell of PeaceWorks, one of the organizations that helped organize the event, created the slideshow and encouraged members of the audience to visit Nicaragua.

"If you ever have the opportunity to go to Nicaragua or another country, [go] - for me, I've been going for a while and every time I go it's like my first time. It's incredible. I'm like a little boy in the back of a pick-up truck," said Burchell. "I've met so many people and it changes your life."

Burchell spoke with Rev. Barbara Heck, of the Protestant Campus Ministry, and Rev. John Larson, of the Lutheran Campus Ministry about a month ago and they viewed his slideshow.

"[Burchell] is, in my eyes, a prophet crying out and giving voice to the poor in a strange and foreign land," Heck said. "We were just moved by [the slideshow] and we began to think about how we could get the word out about Nicaragua to the Rutgers community."