Agros International
Current donation: $260,000
Donations to date: $879,000
Agros works to break the cycle of poverty for farming families in rural Latin America. In the upcoming year, our donation will help Agros build an agribusiness incubator in La Bendición, Nicaragua, that will teach farmers across seven villages the skills they need to break the cycle of intergenerational poverty by moving from subsistence farming to commercial agriculture.
Why They're Climate Smart
Current farming methods produce a third of all greenhouse emissions worldwide — but they don't meet the world's growing demand for food and don't generate enough income for those growing the food. Agros believes there is a solution: land ownership, market-led agriculture, financial empowerment, and sustainable climate-smart farming practices.
Agros teaches farming families how to use hydroponics, vermicomposting, and reforestation techniques to not only increase their yields, produce healthier food, and generate more income, but also reduce their impact on the environment.
Why They Receive Our Continued Support
Their results are outstanding. Over the past four years, Agros has enabled families in San José and La Bendición, Nicaragua, to create a net worth of $29,000 — building prosperous communities out of what was essentially nothing (as Agros builds new villages from scratch) and lifting them out of extreme poverty. They then took their learnings to the next level and created a Harvest of Hope Center (HHC) in La Bendición — a facility designed to teach farmers market-oriented, climate-smart agricultural skills and transform the region.
Agros has developed a vermicompost production and training facility (which reduced the use of chemical-based fertilizers by 40 percent), created a nursery, caringly cultivated over 41,000 seedlings, reforested over 47 acres of land, registered 226 acres under a sustainable forest management program, installed a water irrigation system and community hydroponic modules, and built family-oriented greenhouses. Their ecological latrines, showers, stoves, and water filters protect water recharge zones and save over 1.6 million gallons of water and 90,000 kg of wood per year. Their certification with the Rainforest Alliance allows farmers to increase their incomes, and they've given women the opportunity to diversify their household income by selling surplus produce to other community members.