The Human Farm: A Tale of Changing Lives and Changing Lands (Kumarian Press Books for a World That Works)
"If the mind of a campesino is a desert, his farm will look like a desert," wrote two Honduran relief workers in a 1991 essay that piqued the interest of Canadian journalist Smith. "People are the problem-not the trees, the soil or not even the crops-so it is with people that we must work to care for trees, manage hillsides and produce grains." For nearly 25 years, Milton Flores and Jose Elias Sanchez have worked to improve the lot of poverty-stricken farmers in one of the Western hemisphere's most desperate countries. Large families, lack of education and destructive farming customs that depleted the soil have left many Honduran farmers barely able to feed their families. At their training farm in the Honduran mountains, Flores and Sanchez help campesinos learn how to clear land without burning it, how to make and use compost, and the link between personal hygiene and health. Smith tracks several peasant farmers through the process and watches how their lives change once they have access to new ideas in this inspiring story of how, given the most basic skills and encouragement, people can affect remarkable changes. Although Smith's narrative is too often broken by the jumble of relief organizations' acronyms, she nonetheless keeps the focus on the personalities working on the human farm with considerable success. Illustrations not seen by PW.Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.