Disaster relief in Honduras

[Guest guest]

,thanks for your thoughts on this latest Central American disaster.

I spent extensive time in Tegucigalpa and Comayaguela Honduras in the

60's and still stay in contact with the SOS KInderdorf, Amigos de los Ninos

there. Sor , OSF, is the head of that organization and

I send money regularly. They operate orphanages, farms and self help

housing programs that are located throughout the country. They were extensively

involved in the recovery from the last disaster which if I remember was

a hurricaine. I plan to return to Honduras this fall.

If you and others are interested, I can set up a special fund within

NCFH and send it to Sor when accumulated. Those who might like to

send money should send it to NCFH, earmarked "Amigos de los Ninos" at the

following address:

National Center for Farmworker Health

Amigos de los Ninos Fund -Honduras

1770 FM 967

Buda, Texas 78610

Thanks for the suggestion , I know that Sor will make

sure any moneys we can send are spent wisely. I'll match the first

$500 we can collect. I know that any amount, however small will be

helpful. Bobbi

Lighthall wrote:

I wanted to pass on several thoughts regarding

the article Adolfo posted

below regarding the drought-triggered crisis in Central America.

This

regional crisis of agriculture and rural development has been repeated

in

many regions of the South over the course of the past 100 years:

A natural

disaster (aka environmental hazard) of some form strikes a region

that has

already been weakened by years of disinvestment in human capital

and natural

resources. As a result, the region and its people have little

capacity to

absorb the 'natural' disaster and bounce back. In fact, while

the forces of

nature may be the surface cause, the relative severity of their

impact is

socially constructed. Also in the US the Federal Emergency

Management

Administration provides considerable funds to regions struck by

hurricane,

drought, etc. Those of you who follow Irish history can also

see this same

model applies to the Irish potato famine of the mid-19th century,

where

years of British economic exploitation and land appropriation had

put rural

Ireland in a very precarious dependence on the potato.

Geographers such as my colleague Ben Wisner (quoted in the article)

and

other critical social scientists have been pointing out this general

failure

of rural development since the 1970s, a process driven by a collusion

between the urban elites of the South, multi-lateral development

agencies,

the World Bank, and the IMF.

If anyone knows of any fund that they would recommend we send our

contributions, please let us know.

Regards,

Lighthall

CIRS

-----Original Message-----

From: Mata, Adolfo [mailto:amata@...]

Sent: Tuesday, August 28, 2001 6:15 AM

' '

Subject: RE: [ ] Drought Creates Food Crisis

in

Central America

An unfortunate situation that may lead to an exodus of migrants

headed to

the US.

August 28, 2001

Drought Creates Food Crisis in Central America

By DAVID GONZALEZ

ILLADO, Honduras, Aug. 24 - A merciless

and stubborn summer drought has

left almost 1.5 million of the poorest

farmers in Central America with no crops

to sell or food to eat.

>From Nicaragua to Guatemala, many of the region's poorest people

have been

reduced to scavenging for mangoes and

bananas after seeing the bean and corn fields they planted months

ago

reduced to a crunchy tan carpet of withered stalks

and wrinkled leaves.

Although the long-awaited rainy season has finally begun, there

is no

assurance that it will be enough to sustain the year's

second planting season, which began a few weeks ago. Already crippled

by

debt from the failed harvest, farmers have

neither the cash nor the credit to buy the fertilizers and pesticides

they

need to coax their crops from the overworked soil.

Officials estimate that more than 700,000 people have lost at least

half of

their crops.

It was only out of habit and hope that Celestino Salinas trudged

through his

small field here today poking a stick into the

earth, tossing in a few seeds of sorghum and corn he had hoarded.

"We have

nothing now," he said. "I only think about God

and ask that he favor us. We are planting with faith."

In a region battered over the years by earthquakes, hurricanes and

conflict,

the drought is a potential coup de grâce. People

suffer from malnutrition. Communities fret about vanishing supplies

of

drinkable water. And cash-short farmers, trying to

stave off impatient lenders intent on repossessing their land,

sell off the

few scrawny cows and chickens that gave them milk

and eggs. There are already reports of a desperate migration northward

in

search of work in neighboring countries or the

elusive salvation of the United States.

The governments of the region have said little. While Honduras has

declared

an emergency, other countries have tried to

minimize the severity of the problem. The mixed and delayed responses,

as

well as a continued dependence on emergency

food aid, point to a persistent inability of the region's leaders

to prepare

for disasters and to provide water, financing and

social services for the many peasants who live on the edge.

Aid workers and disaster experts say that instead of considering

the drought

an isolated emergency, officials must begin

looking at long-term rural development needs.

"These people are subsistence farmers in a world that is not a subsistence

world," said Francisco Roque Castro, the Latin

America director of the United Nations World Food Program. "They

live an

outdated routine. Yet people are depending on

an uncertain rain for an uncertain harvest that will only maintain

them in a

precarious situation."

Misery has been the only constant over the years in rural towns

along the

dirt roads and rocky hillsides. Even before the

drought, 6,000 children in El Salvador alone died from hunger each

year, the

United Nations says. The loss of crops and

farm laborer jobs increased the suffering.

In Honduran towns around Choluteca, a region that lost 92 percent

of the

first harvest, many 5-year-olds are as tiny as

toddlers, their wavy brown hair streaked with yellow, a sign of

protein

deficiency.

Local officials say residents have rummaged through the castoff

shrimp heads

from local fish packers to make a thin soup,

although even the shrimp farms have diminished output because of

low water

levels.

Some families have one daily meal of bananas and milk. What little

money

adults earn is quickly spent, just as a recent food

donation from the World Food Program was rapidly devoured.

"The children are desperate," said Ana Amador, who has four

children.

"They ask me to bring them an apple or an

orange, but I say no. If I buy corn and beans, I cannot buy fruit.

If they

are to go to school, it is a battle. My children are

without food or shoes. Sure they need shoes, but they need food

more."

For months Vicente Herrera has fed his family with mangoes that

he and his

friends pluck from trees on the other side of a

nearby hill. It is a long trek, made all the worse by having to

haul sacks

of the fruit in the hot sun. "We pick them green," he

said. "And by the time we get home they are ripe."

Others are taking a riskier journey, spilling over from Nicaragua

and

Honduras in search of scant work in El Salvador, while

those Salvadorans who have the resources or connections venture

to the

United States.

"Our problem is we are a small country with many people and few

resources,"

said Ceslo González Hernández, the

comptroller in the border town of El Sauce. "What will happen to

those

people who are in their most productive work

years? What can they do? They will go on an adventure and end up

in the

deserts of Arizona. There is no life here."

Aid groups and international donors have begun to provide food and

seeds,

but United Nations officials said they cannot

begin to meet the need.

The United States, mostly through the Agency for International Development,

is providing 4,800 tons of food, a month's

supply for about 365,000 people. But the shipment will not arrive

for three

weeks, forcing aid officials to shift reserves from

current feeding programs.

The farmers are also grappling with leftover debt from the first

harvest and

the unwillingness of banks and businesses to

make loans or sell on credit. In Honduras, although the government

pressed

banks to forgive part of the farmers' debts,

lenders have been hesitant.

"The banks are repossessing a lot of properties," said Ismael Banegas,

the

southern regional coordinator for the Honduran

Agriculture Ministry. "In some zones there are armed people who

do not want

to see their land taken. In one town they told

the ministry that if we do not fix the situation, they will."

But the only lasting solution, aid officials said, will have to

come from an

assessment of why the region has failed to cope with

natural disasters.

The aid officials say insufficient investment in rural areas, poor

planning

that allows mud-and-wattle shacks to be built on

earthquake- or landslide-prone hillsides and the lack of health

care and

education for the poor only set up a country for the

worst.

"Disasters are a symptom of a failed development paradigm," said

Ben Wisner,

a visiting researcher in environmental studies

at Oberlin College and vice chairman of the hazards and risks committee

of

the International Geographical Union.

"The governments have no respect for the farmers' culture," he said,

"nor do

they have any tradition of providing rural

services, because they do not see the payback in human terms."

Aid officials also said that in some countries, politics had taken

precedence over human need.

In El Salvador, they said, the government lagged in declaring a

modified

state of emergency, apparently out of fear that it

would drive up interest rates on foreign loans. In Nicaragua, where

campaigning is under way for the presidential election in

November, the outgoing president, Arnoldo Alemán, suggested

that the drought

was God's punishment against his Sandinista

political opponents.

"It is unfortunate that this crisis had to happen at the same time

as a

presidential election," said one aid worker in Nicaragua.

"As with foreign aid, it becomes difficult for humanitarian assistance

not

to become politicized."

Some countries have begun to look at the longer term. Honduras plans

to

build irrigation systems in regions affected by the

drought.

And some have used their own resources and money from aid groups

for

agricultural research, seeking drought-resistant

seeds and alternative crops. But too often, aid officials said,

such plans

are spotty and subject to political whim or the

changing focus of the donor groups themselves.

"Every decade there is a lack of continuity and investment in public

infrastructure, and agricultural research falls off a cliff and

people start all over," said , the Nicaragua director

of World

Relief, an evangelical development group. "There

needs to be more discernment by by donor agencies in seeing what

is going on

with resources."

But aid officials also fear that Central American leaders are distracted

by

the current emphasis on luring overseas investors to

build factories. They doubt that factories will help the rural

areas, since

the manufacturing zones are not nearby.

Nor have the aid officials seen the opening of local markets to

free trade

as having spurred farmers to improve their methods

and their fortunes.

"These farmers are confronting tomorrow's challenges with yesterday's

tools," said Mr. Roque of the World Food Program.

"You cannot try to survive in this modern world," he said, "when

you only

have corn and beans to cultivate on land that is

marginal and subject to drought and floods, or when you have open

markets

and your major competition is the United

States. All it creates are generations with a built-in disadvantage."

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