I had the opportunity to visit a project that our club supports in Chone Ecuador.  The Agricultural Training Center provides education to farmers and agricultural students on sustainable farming.  Their primary crop is bamboo, but they have 17 crops on the farm for diversity and crop rotation.  The education of diversity is important, as it is not intuitive for the local farmers.

Chone is an extremely poor region. In 2016, it was devastated by an earthquake that destroyed most of its infrastructure and homes. Farmers were particularly affected, being one of the most fragile and impoverished groups. 

However, Chone possesses ideal soil, rain, luminosity and climatic conditions for agricultural production, especially for bamboo and cocoa due to its location in a tropical mountain range near the Equator. 

Farmers of Chone share similar difficulties with the rest of farmers in Ecuador and the Third World. Their occupation is intrinsically risky since it depends on a great deal of variables which they cannot or do not know how to control such as price, weather, climate or pests. 

The mission of this Rotary project is to provide sponsorships to young farmers who would like to increase their education around sustainable farming, replace the use of chemicals on their farm with organic methods and learn how to export their goods.



If you would like to donate to this project, and maximize your donation with matching grant funds, contact Don Johnson at [email protected].