Nongovernmental Organizations and Tropical Agroecological Development, with Honduran Examples

Historically, much agricultural development in the Third World has been by large, foreign governmental organizations. Their top-down, bureaucratic approach has typically encouraged the adoption of machinery and chemicals. This North American development model has proved inappropriate for small, impoverished farmers, especially those working on steep slopes. For these farmers, a more successful model, often promoted by nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), is bottom-up and labor intensive, emphasizing conservation and the use of cover crops. Such agroecological techniques have enabled some very small Honduran farmers to increase yields substantially and to reduce both the fallow period and the use of fire.