Purchase for Progress and Scaling Up Nutrition in Guatemala

The expected intermediate outcomes for this project include: (1) increased sustainable agricultural production and productivity for rural smallholder farmers, especially women farmers; (2) improved consumption of nutritious foods or supplements for food-insecure, undernourished or food aid dependent populations; and (3) increased women’s participation, representation and decision making in small farmers’ organizations and communities.

Results achieved as of March 2016 include: Purchase for Progress (P4P) component: (1) 27 farmer organizations located in nineteen municipalities in the Northeastern region of Guatemala, had their organizational structure strengthened; more specifically, all of them now have a working “ board”, and 25 now have a gender commission; (2) 240 demonstration plots were implemented using best practices such as minimum tillage, green manure, irrigation and contour; (3) 17 farmer organizations have commercialized maize and 12 have commercialized black beans; (4) 280.2 metric tons of black beans and 1,154.05 metric tons of maize were purchased by the WFP, while 22.6 metric tons of maize was purchased locally to produce complementary food for the resilience-building component of the project; and (5) the project identified a 20% increase in women participating as agriculture promoters in the farmers’ organizations. Resilience component: (1) 375 families of Zacapa and El Progreso (180 women or 48% and 195 men or 52%), received food assistance in exchange for improving community resilience: 100% of these families have been trained on nutritional practices, in addition, the food distributed went to families that worked in soil and water conservation measures and natural resources management to better protect the environment in the communities; and (4) a more diverse diet (cereals, tubers, legumes, oils and fats, milk products, fruits and vegetables) was introduced to each family (89.9% of the targeted families now have an acceptable diet). Scaling up Nutrition component: (1) 15,009 children (6 to 24 years old) improved the quality of their complementary feeding in Solola and Chimaltenango through the delivery of a complementary cereal called “Mi Comidita”; (2) a total of 694 women were trained as peer mothers in Solola and Chimatenango, surpassing the target of 300 women per department; and (3) 4,026 of women who are pregnant in Solola and Chimaltenango visited health centers where they had access to the complementary food.