Obtaining the foreign exchange to import medicines is a problem. Instead of buying foreign drugs the University of Leon has set up a project to produce medicines from local plants. A team will survey the existing herbal medicine remedies used by healers throughout the country. The University will obtain samples of the herbs they are confident in prescribing and co-ordinate a project for their growth and harvesting. They are working with nature to help the sick instead of relying on pharmaceutical factories.
Food production is a crucial area in the new Nicaraguan economy.
The Ministry of Agricultare has developed a Popular Mobilization Programme for Self-Sufficiency in Food . Its intention is to encourage people to channel their eating habits away from foods such as meat that are an extravagant use of Nicaragua s limited environmental resources. Grazing cattle require more land to produce a kilogram of protein than, say, corn. The land used for cattle grazing could be more productively used to grow vegetable crops. More productive use of land allows, in environmental terms, a good fit between the earth s finite resources and human needs.