ASB donated supplies, equipment and processing technology to community seed banks in order to strengthen their processing cycle.

The ASB project “Sustainable increase of the income of rural families in Nicaragua” improves the availability of staple foods and its seeds in the Nicaraguan region of Estelí, by strengthening community seed banks. The project’s main purpose is to function as an emergency seed supply when small farmers experience seed shortages due to crop failures or seed destruction as a result of floods, droughts, pests and diseases - hence why each farmer in the community save few of their seeds in light of helping each other when the right time comes.

Therefore, ASB together with its partner “UNAG - Estelí” donated supplies, equipment and processing technology to community seed banks, in order to strengthen the processing cycle. Nine different seed banks were beneficiated by the project: in those, some needs were identified before the donation and thus, fulfilled, such as moisture meters, temperature meters of varying kinds, metal bins (Silos), scales, among many other things, giving the delivery of the equipment the right direction.

Yessenia Cerrato, the project supervisor in Estelí, Nicaragua, explained during the inauguration of the first seed bank “La Bendición” (The Blessing), that the project has helped 273 families directly and 1.092 people indirectly. Those beneficiated indirectly, she continued, are families living in the area and consumers of staple foods or even local retailers. This means that ASB is not only strengthening certain families, but strengthening the community as a whole.

The project started in 2017 and will be executed until 2020, with the funding of the German government through the BMZ.