Peanuts are pretty much the worst.
Not the nut – it’s delicious and makes a wonderful spreadable goo. But peanut cultivation in Nicaragua is steadily killing the country’s soil, wildlife and people.
The problem is complicated, but it boils down to a few key elements. First, Nicaragua is poor. It’s the second-poorest country in the hemisphere, with an average family’s income somewhere around $1250/year.
Second, Nicaragua is getting hammered from the effects of climate change. The dry season is getting longer and more achingly dry than ever, while the rainy season has become more violent and less predictable.
Third, the Nicaraguan government has limited capability to enforce laws, and wealthy companies can act with impunity regarding deforestation, agro-chemical use and minimum spray distances from houses.
Here’s how peanuts come into this: Large agro-businesses approach small farmers and offer between $100 & $200 per hectare to rent their land for peanut cultivation. To a poor farmer this seems like a lot of money, especially since it’s given up-front in a time when harvests can be wildly unpredictable. So many small landholders end up entering into multi-year contracts with the peanut growers.
The growers start by cutting down all the trees on the rented land to maximize the plantable area, and then tilling and sowing as soon as the first rains arrive. They plant vast areas in tightly-packed rows, which inevitably attract insects, fungus and diseases. To combat them, the growers spray their crops mercilessly with chemicals that are illegal even in Nicaragua. The laborers applying them usually have only a bandana over the nose for protection, and the chemical mists drift into nearby homes and schools.
Amazingly, the dry season brings something even worse. The peanuts are harvested about a month after the last rains, and then the fields are left bare for the remaining six months of the dry season. The wind gusts through the fields and, with no trees to stop it, kicks up massive, pesticide-laden dust storms that invade every building for miles. The effects are terrible- children die every year from kidney failure and upper respiratory infections that they simply shouldn’t have.
This has been going on for about fifteen years. Farmers and residents are aware of the tremendous problems that peanut cultivation is causing, but there are now fewer viable alternatives. Smallholding farmers are painfully dependent on the rain, which is becoming much less dependable. The compressed growing season also results in everyone harvesting at the same time, which can severely depress prices and render a farmer’s yield nearly worthless. Prices for yucca root, sesame seeds and corn can drop to less than a dollar per 100 lbs. People are aware that renting their land to the peanut farmers is signing a deal with the devil, but there are simply few good options.
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A promising technology for changing the situation is drip irrigation. These are hyper-efficient irrigation systems that use a water tower and many perforated tubes to deliver water directly to plant roots. They use vastly less water than spray irrigation and can run without a constant energy source, as gravity drives the water pressure. Drip-irrigated crops require far less (or no) herbicide, since water goes only to the desired plants.
Most importantly, drip irrigation systems allow farmers to plant and harvest during the dry season, which is normally a time of scarcity and unemployment. They let farmers sell their crops at any time of year, freeing them from predatory pricing. They also let the farmer cover-crop and rotate his fields, which are essential components of soil health.
There are massive environmental benefits from drip irrigation as well. Most insects are dormant during the dry season, so farmers can use much gentler pest management. Drip-irrigated fields lock down the soil and prevent dust storms from forming. Land use is also optimized – one acre of irrigated vegetables can generate as much revenue as seven acres or more of unirrigated commodity crops.
For most farmers, the prohibitive aspect is cost. Labor and materials for installing a 3-acre drip system is about $2000 – around a year and a half’s income for an average smallholder.
Our idea would be to use the Good Growth Plan Grant to establish a loan bank and provide technical assistance to farmers looking to start a drip irrigation system. We’d provide the farmer with the materials, training and cost of labor for installing a system, and provide ongoing support for the first few years of running the system. Provided that the system generates a healthy and sustainable profit, the farmer will repay the startup costs over a period of 5-7 years, and those funds will be used to establish future drip systems.
The program would be centered around the community of El Tololar, León – an area where I was a Peace Corps Volunteer and where our organization (Tololamos) operates. We have already established three drip irrigation systems in the area and have largely troubleshooted the process. We have community members with technical training and reliable sources for materials. But we’ve never had the funds to establish a large, self-sustaining bank like this. And we think it would be tremendous.
I believe this idea sincerely meets every one of the Good Growth Plan’s goals. It certainly increases the efficiency of land and water use for growing crops, and boosts both farmland income and output. It would rescue a great deal of farmland from peanut cultivation, and save it from total soil depletion. Our contracts with farmers would stipulate proper use of windbreaks and living fences, which will provide a great deal of habitat for local species. Drip irrigations allows smallholders to escape a destructive, predatory cycle and regain control of their production. And lessened use of pesticides will make every worker and every family safer and healthier.
Peanut cultivation in Nicaragua is not sustainable, and it will come to an end in one of two ways. It might continue until the soil is depleted, at which point the planters will simply move on and leave landowners with barren and polluted ground. The same thing happened with cotton cultivation only a couple of decades ago. Or farmers can retake their land and use it in a sustainable, prosperous way.
We have the ability to help sway that choice, and this grant could make a tremendous and meaningful difference.