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| May 2008 |
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Help Potato Farmers in Peru! Dear Columban Friend, About 185 miles east of the urban bustle of Lima, the poor village of Huasahuasi, Peru, lies tucked amid the Andes Mountains at 10,000 feet above sea level. Given these geographical facts, you can picture the human facts of the local people’s hardscrabble lives. 
Columban Father Leo Donnelly points toward newly tilled and planted fields high in the Andes Mountains of Peru near the village of Huasahuasi.
Still, God has blessed the area with fertile land where crops such as peas, broad beans, corn, onions, cabbage, lettuce, flowers and oats are grown. Huasahuasi’s claim to fame, however, is potatoes, which are planted and harvested on the mountainous slopes above this village of about 6,000 inhabitants. The farmers in the area around Huasahuasi grow seed potatoes that other farmers then use to grow plants that produce potatoes for consumers throughout Peru.
Columban Father Leo Donnelly of Australia has spent most of his 51 years as a missionary in Peru, including much of the 1990s as a parish priest in Huasahuasi (pronounced “wasa-wasi”). During that time, he became friends with Hector Martinez Trinidad, a skilled agronomist who organized the village’s impressive seed potato project. Hector organized small landholders to set up a potato seed laboratory on land donated by the Australian Josephite Sisters and was instrumental in building a nursery of four greenhouses. It was here where marble-sized potatoes were grown in peat moss beds then planted in the area’s arable land. Harvest after harvest, the plantings were expanded, and new strains of seed and consumer potatoes were assured for farmers and consumers throughout Peru.
Agronomist Hector Martinez Trinidad wants to rehabilitate greenhouses, such as this one, for the benefit of potato farmers in the Andes Mountains of Peru.
“Overnight, the whole project became a sad sight,” Fr. Leo told me about this tragedy for these fiercely independent people. Then last year, Fr. Leo, now retired to Lima at age 76, went to visit Huasahuasi. What a pleasant surprise he had when he visited his old friend Hector and learned he was back as director of the seed potato project, charged with resurrecting the laboratory. Fr. Leo tells me Hector is facing an uphill battle steeper than the slopes upon which the potatoes are grown. The project is desperately strapped for cash and has no support from the Peruvian government, which had privatized agriculture in the 1990s. That’s why Fr. Leo has turned to me—and I am turning to you—for help. Fr. Leo reports that the potato laboratory in Huasahuasi is functional, but desperately needs new equipment. The greenhouses are still operational, but they need extensive renovations to restore the program’s successes. “The possibilities are enormous,” Fr. Leo wrote to me. “It will help the people get on their feet and help one another and, once re-established, the program is self-supporting. Potato farmers all over Peru are willing to buy the new strains that will be produced. I am quite sure the collapse of the project has taught everyone a huge lesson—no one wants that to happen again.” Fr. Leo reports that Hector has laid out the following goals:
With your help, we can help this potato seed project get on its feet and thrive, benefiting thousands of poor Andean families in Huasahuasi and beyond. Any amount you can give, large or small, will go toward helping these family farmers create better lives for themselves and their families. In thanks for your support for these children of God, we will, as always, keep you and yours in our prayers. Gratefully yours in Christ,
Fr. Arturo Aguilar Please help Columban Father Leo Donnelly lend his support to the seed potato project in Huasahuasi, Peru. Your tax-deductible donation will help poor Andean farmers grow their invaluable seed potatoes that they can sell to other farmers throughout Peru, who also will benefit from your generosity. How You Can Help Columban Father Leo Donnelly is asking you to help him help poor farmers in the Peruvian Andes rejuvenate their potato seed laboratory and greenhouses. Here are the project's most-pressing needs:
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