Semilla Nueva’s Food and Nutritional Security classes are by far the most happenin’ places to be in el campo, the countryside. Every other week, women from a community gather at one member’s house to cook, laugh and catch up. During these classes women learn new recipes that incorporate the nutritious crops SN promotes; chaya, Quality Protein Maize (QPM) and pigeonpea, as well as the nutritional value of each crop. (more…)

By: Haley Kirk

My friends from the states that I work with like to tell me that I’m “immersed”. I’m the most Guatemalan gringa that they know. It would come as no surprise then, that I love tortillas. Many people who come to visit Guatemala get bored with the taste quickly or decide to turn down the extra carbohydrates. I, on the other hand, love them in all shapes and sizes, whether they are hand formed or made with a press, whether they are made from white, yellow, or blue corn, and whether they are soft and doughy or crispy like a tostada. I do not discriminate against tortillas.

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It’s the middle of the night, and we are driving across Guatemala in a semi-truck. It is filled with 1,283 bags of QPM, highly nutritious corn seed for farming families to plant, harvest, and save for years to come. We drive through dawn to get the bags to southern coast so that Semilla Nueva farming families can have their seed in time for the rain. Over the past two months our team has witnessed an incredible journey of this corn from the cob to a fully processed seed, bagged and ready for the soil of rural corn fields in Guatemala.

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