Guatemala: Urban vegetable gardens against shortages in time of confinement

Erick Torres, educator for an international organization teaching organic farming techniques in his vegetable garden in San Pedro Las Huertas, in Guatemala.

Guatemalans have started to tackle food shortages in times of confinement against the coronavirus by improvising vegetable gardens on their balconies or in the patios of their homes.

Spinach, potatoes, rosemary, carrots, basil, peppers, tomatoes, cucumbers, watermelons, beans ... are flourishing.

"Before we had neither the time nor the space, but we are in a pandemic time, and I was able to get started. Now it's a supplement to feed us," Adriana told AFP. Armas, a 25-year-old student who lives in the capital.

In Guatemala, where a curfew is imposed on the population, more than 5,000 confirmed cases have been officially registered, and more than a hundred patients have died from the new coronavirus.

"Of course, we do not live on agriculture like many people in the countryside. It is a plan B in anticipation of what can happen to us" in terms of food shortage, adds the student.

She says that she started sowing in egg cartons where she had put soil, and "little by little the plants started to grow", providing her with fresh food.

The chemical engineer Crista Chavez, 28, telecommuting, also cultivates in his house in Guatemala City a small vegetable garden for the family, which she enriches the soil with her own compost.

"Lots of learning"

"I see it as something long term because it takes a lot of learning, acquiring a lot of techniques, and as human beings it is part of us, being able to harvest," she says.

For her, children must be taught to garden. A conviction shared by Erick Torres, an educator who teaches organic farming techniques for an international organization to peasants who need to achieve food self-sufficiency.

"Because of the situation we live in (because of the coronavirus), we see the need to expand and diversify crops to meet food needs," insists Erick Torres, who helps his brother to build a greenhouse in the tourist town. from Antigua Guatemala (southwest of the capital).

In addition to producing food, the vegetable gardens make it possible to bring up to date "the traditional seeds" which are transmitted from generation to generation, he congratulates himself.

A legacy to pass on

"The vegetable patch is a school, it produces food, seeds and allows the transmission of our biological and cultural heritage", insists Erick Torres who must now give his advice on the internet.

The demand for seeds has exploded with the proliferation of home gardens, and Erick Torres says he sold in two weeks what it usually took seven months to sell.

The educator's nephew, Alejandro Torres, a 23-year-old bartender, deprived of work, also began gardening, providing food for the family and saving money on rent. .

 

As it is not uncommon in Antigua Guatemala, the whole family has been struck by the tourism crisis: "My dad is a tour guide, my little sister was fired from her job as a waitress in a bar, my big sister was cooking and brewing coffee ... We had to close our restaurant due to government restrictions "to fight the pandemic," laments Alejandro Torres.

But, he adds with pride, "now, having a carrot, a potato on your plate makes us measure the value of the food and the soil" that produced it.

"Finding our roots is important. Unfortunately, we would have had to go there (...) to know where we get our food (...) relearn how to cultivate vegetable gardens", comments the converted bartender.


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Gardening;Urban gardening