{"id":9902,"date":"2017-02-10T11:04:13","date_gmt":"2017-02-10T10:04:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.fondationensemble.org\/en\/9888\/"},"modified":"2017-04-18T11:01:44","modified_gmt":"2017-04-18T10:01:44","slug":"9888","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.fondationensemble.org\/en\/9888\/","title":{"rendered":"Testimonies of Isidro Chicaiza and Carmen Ulcuango, beneficiaries of the AVSF project in Ecuador"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Ulcuango\"<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Carmen Ulcuango, a 40-year-old farmer, is involved in the Carcel\u00e9n Frutos de Nuestra Tierra market and the \u2018Yo Prefiero\u2019 food basket scheme. She works on her farm with her four children, helped by her husband on weekends or when he is not away doing construction work.<\/strong><\/p>\n

“It\u2019s quiet here, it\u2019s the countryside; the air is pure, it\u2019s not like in the town. Farming provides us with everything, but it isn\u2019t easy because the soil isn\u2019t good. It\u2019s cangahua (volcanic crust) and we lack fertilizers.<\/p>\n

I like being part of this project because I\u2019ve learned for the first time how to make fertilizer, mixtures, how to grind up small stones for \u2018soil mineralization\u2019, how to \u2018prepare microorganisms\u2019 and so on. This helps us a lot with our production. By making my own fertilizer, I no longer need to buy chemical products, I have no expenses and the soil quality improves.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve had also a lot of support. In the past, we didn\u2019t know where to sell our produce. We couldn\u2019t eat everything we grew and so some of our pulses went bad. With the monthly food baskets, I earn between $150 and $180 (US dollars), and at the Carcel\u00e9n market I make around $60 nearly every week.<\/p>\n

That helps me financially: I can contribute to my children\u2019s education, to transport and food costs. And on top of that, I don\u2019t buy all my food any more. I now have a bigger variety of produce all the time, to eat or to sell. I bring back strawberries, blackberries, oranges and mandarins from the market, which we hardly ever used to eat.<\/p>\n

I hope to continue farming, growing more types of crop. At the markets, they want more produce.”<\/p>\n

 
\n<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Chicaiza\"<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Isidro Chicaiza, a 49-year-old farmer. He lives in Santa Marianita and works with his wife. His two daughters help them after school<\/strong>. <\/strong>He mainly grows tomatoes, strawberries, peppers and cucumbers … He could grow more but he has water access problems, and so not all the land can be farmed. He has to to optimize water use, which is why he uses a drip irrigation system on several crops.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201c<\/strong>I like my community. It\u2019s a healthy place, we\u2019re in the open air, we live in a community and there\u2019s a spirit of solidarity between us. I don\u2019t like living in towns.<\/p>\n

I also like taking part in the workshops and exchange visits, discovering new places and learning new things. [\u2026] I\u2019ve gained a lot from what I\u2019ve learned: I know more, my yields are higher, my crops grow well. We\u2019re organized and we\u2019ve been able to improve ourselves, little by little.<\/p>\n

Everything\u2019s positive as far as I\u2019m concerned. In the past, projects came, and they taught us how to produce, but now the important thing is being able to sell. We work more systematically and we\u2019re not afraid to produce because we know where to sell. With the food baskets, I earn between $100 and $140 a month and at the Carcel\u00e9n market I make about $80.<\/p>\n

We eat much better nowadays and exchange our produce, rather than having to buy food as we used to do. We haven\u2019t had to buy anything for three years now. Every week, I exchange about $10 to $15 worth of food; I take cheese, empanadas, bananas, onions, yoghurt and so on.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t use chemical products on my crops, which makes us healthier and doesn\u2019t destroy the soil and the environment. [\u2026]<\/p>\n

In terms of the family, I want us to continue working together without having to move to the town. My married children have come back and now we\u2019re building new greenhouses so that we can all work together. But we need other outlets as well as Carcel\u00e9n so that we can carry on selling.\u201d<\/p>\n

Find out more on the AVSF project in Ecuador here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  Carmen Ulcuango, a 40-year-old farmer, is involved in the Carcel\u00e9n Frutos de Nuestra Tierra market and the \u2018Yo Prefiero\u2019 food basket scheme. She works on her farm with her four children, helped by her husband on weekends or when he is not away doing construction work. “It\u2019s quiet here, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":9891,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[24],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fondationensemble.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9902\/"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fondationensemble.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fondationensemble.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post\/"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fondationensemble.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3\/"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fondationensemble.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments\/?post=9902"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/www.fondationensemble.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9902\/revisions\/"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10256,"href":"https:\/\/www.fondationensemble.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9902\/revisions\/10256\/"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fondationensemble.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9891\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fondationensemble.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/?parent=9902"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fondationensemble.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories\/?post=9902"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fondationensemble.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags\/?post=9902"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}