Fintrac recommended contoured terraces to decrease soil erosion on Villeda’s farm.

LA LIMA, Honduras — For 13 years, Jose Antonio Villeda Miranda planted onions in the hills outside Lepaera, Lempira where he owns 1.4 hectares of land. He experienced numerous problems with pests, disease and soil erosion, leading to low yields and inconsistent quality.

Villeda started receiving technical assistance from Fintrac through the MCA-Honduras-funded Farmer Training and Development (Entrenamiento y Desarrollo de Agricultores, EDA) program in October 2006. He started with an onion trial on 0.11 hectares. His first activity with EDA support was the construction of terraces to prevent soil erosion. Villeda invested more than $250 in these terraces, which he now considers one of the most important of the project’s interventions. Before EDA technical assistance, he planted non-hybrid seeds at 200,000 plants per hectare. Following EDA recommendations he switched to hybrid seeds with increased resistance to disease and planted 400,000 plants per hectare. Other significant changes included raised beds, diluted fertilization, live barriers, improved postharvest handling, recordkeeping, business plans and market price monitoring.

The year before technical assistance, Villeda’s onion crop yielded 400 50-pound bags from 0.7 hectares, equivalent to 13,000 kilograms per hectare. In his first crop cycle with EDA technical assistance, he produced 155 50-pound bags on 0.11 hectares, equivalent to 32,025 kilograms per hectare. Although just 0.11 hectares were planted with EDA’s recommended raised beds and plant density, other practices such as fertilization techniques and integrated pest management were applied to his entire area of 1.4 hectares. The farm-wide impact was staggering. Villeda’s farm achieved $18,579 in total sales at a cost of only $5,439, providing $12,087 in profit. His profit the year before was only $1,053.

“We realized that with EDA technologies, we can improve yields, size and quality. The results have been amazing,” Villeda said.

Now convinced of EDA’s basic production practices, Villeda is planting 0.7 hectares of cabbage and another 0.53 hectares of onions with EDA’s full technology package. With his newly installed drip irrigation system, he hopes to surpass his yields achieved during his first cycle with EDA.