It Takes a Village

There are seven basic needs that humans need in order to survive. These are:

Air

Sleep

Shelter

Safety

Clothing

Clean Water

Food - Especially Proper Nutrition and a Healthy Diet

 Today we’re going to focus on the last necessity to survive: food. Throughout the years we have continually developed our Farming for the Future Program led by Freddy Servellon. We began with community workshops in 2018 with the goal to educate and empower the community towards a sustainable and healthy future. Years of manipulation by industrial farming and modern food system pressures have eroded indigenous food production and environmental stewardship. 

El Salvador produces coffee, sugar, corn, rice, and many more agricultural products, but the production of these has many detrimental side effects such as deforestation, soil erosion, and water pollution. Natural disasters, such as hurricanes and volcanic eruptions often create food shortages which decreases agricultural production and contributes to food insecurity and chronic hunger. The Scaling Up Nutrition Group reports that “girls and boys living in rural areas have a higher incidence [of malnutrition] (11.34%) than those living in towns (6.43%)”.

 So why is proper nutrition in addition to food security so important? Essentially it is required for people to live a healthy and higher quality of life, assist in economic and social development, and increase individual lifetime earnings by up to 46 percent. 

But what even is proper nutrition? Proper nutrition means “eating a diet balanced in lean proteins, carbs and fats. The MayoClinic.com recommends getting between 45% - 65% of daily calories from carbohydrates, between 10% - 35% of daily calories from protein and between 20% - 35% of daily calories from fats”.

Diagram of what a healthy plate looks like

A healthy diet results in:

• Heart Health

• Bone and Teeth Strength

• Higher Energy Levels

• Brain Health

• Weight Control

Without a healthy diet individuals are unlikely to reach a higher quality of life, assist in economic and social development, and earn more money to prosper. In children without proper nutrition, they may suffer irreversible effects such as:

1. Stunting - Children are far too short for their age and have damage to their health and development hindering education and reducing their lifetime earrings 

   1. Central America’s stunting prevalence is nearly twice of South America

2. Wasting - Children weigh too little for their height which may result in life-threatening malnutrition

3.  Overweight - Children weigh too much for their height which may create chronic health problems affecting quality of life and productivity and has the potential to add to national healthcare costs

4. Anemia - A lack of iron in the diet and is responsible for 1 in every 5 maternal deaths. Anemia also causes fatigue and impacts the ability to work (especially physically demanding work)

5. Exclusive Breastfeeding - Feeding children only breast-milk for the first 6 months of life. This contributes to the above effects of malnutrition

As seen in the map above, El Salvador has more than 15% of children underweight from ages 0-5

 As evident through this blog post, malnutrition in El Salvador is an extremely prevalent problem. Many government programs were enacted during the 1970’s, but these programs have deteriorated and struggle to meet the needs of the Salvadoran citizens.

Caminos de Accion approaches this problem through traditional knowledge of sustainable agricultural techniques coupled with organic approaches to cultivating indigenous perennial crops to help create food sustainability, health & nutrition, resource preservation and increased income. Traditionally, the residents of Los Tehuistes relied primarily on corn and beans for food which is not an effective way to achieve proper nutrition. In contrast to the past, our program recently started the first demonstrative plot of fully organic corn, while also producing fertilizers and repellents which will be used for this crop. Nevertheless, this is facilitated in a gradual way so families using agrotoxic chemicals in their farming can transition to a more organic way of agriculture. This not only promotes proper nutrition, but is better for the economy and the environment because they no longer have to pay for fertilizers and have a higher air quality. 

 We were also fortunate to receive a donation of 200 fruit bearing and wood trees donated by the Ministry of the Environment with the purpose of helping reforestation of Los Tehuistes. Currently they’re still growing, but we will let you know when they’ve bloomed!