Guatemalan farmers are turning to organic pesticides, rooted in traditional practices and sustainable ideas, to replace expensive synthetic alternatives.Using a mixture of locally available plants, and ideas about farming passed down by ancestors, they are creating natural pesticides to protect their plots.Cheaper than agrochemicals, these biopesticides are safer to use and don’t cause the ecological damage associated with chemical use.Although international interest in biopesticides is growing, agrochemicals still dominate the market.
In the mountain villages of Guatemala’s Western Highlands, farmers are combining ancient Maya knowledge with modern sustainable farming techniques to protect their crops from pests and disease.
Smallholders are creating homemade biopesticides using plants with strong smells and flavors to deter pests on their family plots. This is helping to cut back on the use of increasingly expensive agrochemicals, many of which have been labeled as dangerous to human health and linked to soil degradation.
About 60 Guatemalan communities in the Western Highland departments of Sololá and Huehuetenango, as well as Chiquimula in the east, are working to revive these traditional techniques with support from the international development organization World Neighbors. Their focus is to restore and strengthen traditional knowledge, combining it with agroecological practices that help families produce surplus food they can sell to boost household incomes.
