Surveying their rows of tomatoes, Reynaldo Flórez Benavides and Luis Enrique Blandón Casco examine the healthy harvest. Thanks to the coaching of a local partner of Catholic Relief Services and a few new techniques, their crop is thriving.
In 2007, CRS began organizing a new program funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development and known as ACORDAR. Less than a year ago, ACORDAR saved Reynaldo and Luis from going deep into debt.
After the harvest, the two men's earnings on their onion crop fell below their cost. As the market price for onions plummeted, prices for high-quality tomatoes remained level. And the men's greenhouse-grown, amply irrigated, properly fertilized tomato plants produced a crop so strong that the gross sales not only covered the onion losses and the cost of the tomatoes but also left the two very much in the black for the next growing season. ACORDAR's technical support made the difference.
"We get a better yield, the plant grows faster and produces more fruit," Luis says.
"The irrigation system being used now is much more efficient," Reynaldo adds. "The drip system brings the water right to the plant, and uses less water. We are producing more and better tomatoes and onions from the same amount of land."
Living in the second-poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, many rural Nicaraguan farmers suffer from extreme poverty and malnutrition. ACORDAR's goal is to help farmers deal with unstable markets and teach them how to grow high-quality agricultural goods. Eventually, we hope to pave the way for sustainable success for even the smallest-scale farmers.
Photo by Rick D'Elia for CRS 
Help provide orphans in Lesotho food and the chance continue their education.
