agricultural

By Ian Robinson, F2F Volunteer in Ecuador  It’s a Tuesday morning in Esfuerzo, a rural community in the Ecuadorian Amazon. As the clock hits 9:00 am, a handful of individuals gather in a covered area on the side of the road, each of them carrying a shovel, ax, or hoe. Six piles of decomposing organic waste are spread out across the ground beneath the structure, each pile at a different stage in the process of transformation from vegetable scraps to becoming compost. For the last ten years, these Tuesday morning work sessions have been a weekly tradition in Esfuerzo, one of ten communities in the area to participate in a program that transforms organic waste from municipal markets into nutrient-rich compost. When the waste decomposes, the municipality helps the communities market and transport the fertilizer to their final customers. Residents estimate that they produce 500 40-kg sacks of compost each year and generate over $1,200 in revenue. They also use the fertilizer on their ow...

Article Written by Rebecca Roebber, Marketing Director for indi chocolate Chuya Yaku is a Kichwa community in Ecuador located in the heart of the Amazon. Their cacao growing efforts are preventing deforestation in the rainforest. In Kichwa, Chuya Yaku means clear water. Kichwa is the indigenous language spoken by just over 180 people that live in the community and is a common dialect of the region. Until 2012, Chuya Yaku was inaccessible by road, the elders of the community report that it would take them over a week to reach Puyo, and two days to the nearest town. Once oil industries found out that there was valuable oil in the region, they built a road with the intention of extracting resources. Excessive logging is a secondary effect of the road being built. In the last three years lumber and oil industries and even the local municipality have put money into road and bridge development for continued extraction of resources and extending roads farther into the rainforest. Even though ...