The agriculture sector is the top source of income for the poor in Honduras, providing employment and opportunities for economic growth. Feed the Future helps poor Honduran households increase their incomes by growing high-value crops, improving animal production, diversifying income sources, improving access to credit, and expanding off-farm microenterprise opportunities.
Since 2015, Feed the Future investments have helped over 250,000 farmers increase their incomes by diversifying their subsistence farming production into higher-value crops. Helping farmers grow a variety of crops, in addition to traditional crops like corn and beans, continues to be a cornerstone of Feed the Future activities in Honduras. For example, fruits and vegetables generate an average of $4,000 per hectare, enabling families to increase their incomes and move out of poverty.
Feed the Future is helping families diversify their income sources to build resilience to shocks and stresses, such as floods and drought. These efforts include support for animal production, as well as dairy and eggs. In an emergency such as a drought, animals can be sold at short notice to supplement family income. Feed the Future activities are also providing access to irrigation to mitigate the impact of drought, allowing families to grow crops year-round. In 2018, nearly 11,000 farmers applied irrigation technologies to their plots. Feed the Future is creating a better future for Hondurans through increased access to water, credit, and markets.
These results reflect information from the U.S. Agency for International Development and the U.S. Department of Agriculture, reported into Feed the Future’s central monitoring system for fiscal year 2018 (FY18). Impact data for poverty and stunting statistics come from a 2015 population-based survey by the International Food Policy Research Institute. For more information on the indicators above, please view our Feed the Future Indicator Handbook. All dollar amounts are listed in U.S. dollars.
Honduras has experienced a moderate recovery since the 2008-2009 global economic downturn. Despite this encouraging trend, economic gains over the past several years have largely favored the middle and upper classes, leading to greater income disparity in the country. Poverty and undernutrition continue to limit many Hondurans from leading more productive lives, therefore hampering the development of the next generation. More than 60 percent of Honduras’ extreme poor live in rural areas with limited access to basic services such as clean water, energy, and infrastructure, which exacerbates poor health and sanitation. Twenty-five percent of children are stunted in rural western Honduras, where Feed the Future works.
Honduras is also one of the most vulnerable countries to climate shocks, which exacerbate poverty and food insecurity and make agriculture more difficult as some areas become warmer and rain patterns become more erratic, altering production and market patterns.
Feed the Future’s work in Honduras helps families diversify their incomes and crops, gain access to lucrative markets, and tap into growth opportunities both on and off the farm. Health and nutrition interventions are strengthening community health centers and volunteer services, with a focus on children under five years of age, and improving household diets and hygiene and child feeding practices.
Feed the Future introduces adaptive agricultural practices to improve crop and household resilience. Feed the Future also ensures that both women and men benefit from new opportunities by supporting post-production jobs and enterprises, which are ideal opportunities for rural women.
Feed the Future supports the following programs, partnerships and organizations in Honduras.
For Salomon and other Honduran farmers, access to production technology and crop protection products has been a game-changer. By better managing their crops and protecting against pests, farmers are increasing yields and creating jobs for their communities through better market demand for produce.
Read MoreFeed the Future introduces agricultural practices and technologies to growers in western Honduras that provide adaptation measures to ensure sustainable agricultural growth.
Read MoreImproving nutrition, particularly for mothers and young children, is one of Feed the Future’s highest-level goals. In Honduras, some important breakthroughs in nutrition programming are paving the way toward better health and nourishment for some of the country’s most vulnerable children.
Read MoreFeed the Future and Lutheran World Relief are working together with ten municipalities in Western Honduras on a project to help women and men to advocate for policy changes that enhance women’s access to credit and respond to their needs in agriculture.
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