My story of hope

I was born and raised in a very vibrant area agriculturally speaking: a place on the southern coast of Guatemala where a wide variety of agricultural products are produced and where livestock farming is highly developed. I come from two families that have been engaged in informal agriculture for years. My father was a producer of cattle, bananas, watermelon, and some other vegetables, so I grew up surrounded by farm animals and crops. Even when I was very young, I had the responsibility of taking care of our animals and our crops. So much was the love I had for that world that, in high school and college, I decided to study agriculture focused on animal production and crop science.

When I was 13 years old, my father was in his fifties, and with only two months of study he managed to learn to read and write. One day he took me to our farm located on the south coast of Guatemala and for five days in a row we planted hundreds of fruit trees that were very common in the region, including coconut trees, mangoes, and many other species. My dad was just a few days away from emigrating to the United States to help him recover from some bad agricultural deals that threatened his property ownership, especially the farm that he had bought with so much effort from his father.

On the fourth day of work, already tired, I asked my father why we were planting trees if he was going to move north and we didn't know how many years he was going to be out of Guatemala. I remember that he stopped and wiped the sweat from his forehead and sat down and told me, “Listen son, more than planting trees we are planting the hope that one day I will return and we will enjoy everything that we plant today - the hope that we will not lose our lands and the hope that I will give you a better future.”

Nine years later, my father and I met again in the same place. We ate everything that could be harvested at that time and we remember those days because he did not lose his properties, especially the farm that he loves so much. His support enabled me to graduate from one of the most prestigious agricultural universities in Latin America. So, I have always known that the hope of something better is the last thing to be lost.

Now together all of us, in a huge ecosystem developed by the Regenerative Agriculture Alliance, are building this system that has its challenges, but more than producing chickens we are producing hope, more than planting hazelnuts and elderberries and other species of trees we are planting hope, and more than mitigating climate change and giving our families a better future, we are offering hope. Because hope is the last thing that should be lost, especially in times like the ones we are experiencing.

Wilber De La Rosa is the Poultry Producers Portfolio Manager for the Regenerative Agriculture Alliance.

Issue: May 2022
By: Wilber De La Rosa