Meet Jacobo

Jacobo, a small-scale farmer and father of six, has become a champion for high-zinc, short duration rice in his village. Jacobo started working with Semilla Nueva in 2010, and after four years trying different agricultural technologies, was elected by his Community Agriculture Group to represent them as a Community Coordinator in 2015. Jacobo attends regular meetings with the 24 other coordinators from other Semilla Nueva communities along the southern coast, and then holds trainings for farmers in communities on topics in rural agriculture. This August he held training with neighbor farmers on growing, harvesting, processing, and cleaning high-zinc, short duration rice. “It is good that people know how to grow this product, and look for alternatives. Plus, according to [the trainings], zinc helps our defenses in our bodies, helping our children to grow up healthy.” Because of Jacobo’s work, many families in the community will have access to a reliable source of food and income, even in years characterized by excessive rainfall. Moreover, now that Jacobo and more of his neighbors are harvesting rice, they have begun to work with Semilla Nueva to establish a small processing area close to the community. Before, they had to travel two hours to find a nearby machine to process their rice seed, increasing costs and making some farmers reluctant to plant. Now, with a nearby processing machine, they will be able to increase the size of their parcels and save seed to replant year after year, confident that they will be able to process larger quantities of seed. With his excess production, Jacobo sells rice by the pound out of his local store, generating some additional income for the family.