Añamisi — Ecuador Blog — Manna Project International

Our agriculture partner organization has been doing exciting things in the realm of organic farming lately, and Luke, one of MPI Ecuador's agriculture PDs, would like to give a shout out to our wonderful friends at Añamisi:

What is better than food? If you ask the men of the Manna house the answer would be “Nothing!” In my eyes they are right, (I happen to be one of these men of the Manna house) but only partially. The correct answer is organic food! Yes I know, it is a bit of a trick question.

The distressing reality is that not everyone has access to organic produce and products, and even some that do don’t take advantage of the environmental/health benefits of organic produce and products .

De la Mata a la Olla (roughly translated as “from the earth to the stove pot”), a project started by our agriculture partner organization, Centro de Investigación Enrique Añamisi, works to remedy this problem. Within Quito and the surrounding Chillos Valley, De la Mata a la Olla supports the agrarian livelihood of many local farmers while giving the opportunity for families in Quito, without yards of their own, to enjoy the benefits of organic produce. As Christian and Laura, the founders of Centro de Investigación Enrique Añamisi, describe it, their project is an online social network connecting organic farmers with local household buyers, and is the first of its kind in Ecuador. Christian and Laura work as the intermediaries, picking up the preordered fruits and vegetables from the organic farmers and delivering them to the families that have purchased them. Furthermore, this service is virtually free of charge for the local producers. They only pay a small fee to cover the traveling expenses of Laura and Christian. Sounds too good to be true for the organic farmers, right? If you want to learn more about De la Mata a la Olla and/or support their project, check out their website for more information at http://delamataalaolla.wordpress.com/.

Hope all is well with our Manna readers/supporters!

After Duke's spring break group returned from Baños, we got our hands dirty with our partner organization, Fundación Añamisi. Here to share is Mateen!

Slashing at the gnarled weeds, dodging the hundreds of bugs, and digging into the tough ground, we were fighting a battle in Fundación Añamisi's organic garden. In only three days, the garden would be completely planted, and we would have helped move Christian Añamisi's dream forward. With his partner, Laura Araujo, Christian has been able to create an organic farming business (De la Mata a la Olla, roughly translated as “from the ground to the table”) through which local organic gardens are able to distribute their products to the people of Quito and its surrounding areas over the internet. They both also utilize the knowledge they have gained from this venture to teach other people in the area about organic farming through their organization.

When we arrived at the garden Wednesday morning we were greeted by Christian, Laura, and their two crazy dogs Lupita and Tommy. Christian gave us a quick overview of his projects and proudly showed us some of the many products he sells. We were all amazed by how Christian and Laura were able to create such a sustainable organic farming business while also giving so much back to the community. It was surprising that organic products would be so popular, especially over the internet in a country where only small percentage of the population own computers. Our work over the week was to clear several plots of land, plant new crops, and harvest corn. When we first arrived, the garden was overrun with tangled weeds, grass, and hundreds (only a slight exaggeration) of spiders. With the guidance of Christian and Laura, we dug our tools into the ground. Two days and several tarantula encounters later, we had finally conquered the garden. During the last week of work, we planted lettuce, beets, chard, Japanese lettuce and ahí (chili peppers), and it felt good to be able to see the product of all our hard work.

With the garden work finished, we had the opportunity to help Christian with the English class he teaches at the local university. He had his students record videos with questions in English for us and we recorded answers. We had so much fun with the videos we decided to send back our own questions for the students to answer. My time at the garden was definitely one of the highlights of the trip and I hope I have the opportunity to help them more in the future.