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A “Crazy” Idea Reaps Great Improvements

Once Victor started re-purposing cast-off plastic bottles as mini grain-storage bins, as suggested by Growing Hope’s local partner ACJ from our Nicaragua Boaco program, he saw more than just a few benefits. He explains:

“If you want to have enough food for your family, you’ve got to have a good way to store what you grow. I used to pile up my corncobs with the husks still on and just threw a pesticide on them. It was easy and protected them from weevils.

“When I first started collecting pop bottles my wife, Lucrecia, thought I was crazy! She thought I’d never have enough, but my neighbors gave me their old bottles. You can fit six pounds of grain in each bottle. Before long I’d managed to store 400 pounds of corn and beans!

“After six months, Lucrecia and I checked them: sure enough, no weevils. When she saw how the beans cooked up as soft as if they were newly harvested, she was sold on the idea. Now she helps me collect used bottles!

“There are so many good reasons to use old bottles to store my grain. We don’t have to spend money on chemicals. It’s no more work than what I used to do, but it’s safer and healthier. I don’t have to buy seed for planting, and I even have leftover seed to sell. There’s never any shortage of used plastic bottles, and people usually just throw them out.  So using them even cleans up the environment. I’ve taught my friends and neighbors how to keep their grains like this, too. I’m proud to have learned the technique and proud to have shared it. God helps those who help themselves!”

Photo caption: Beans and corn, not pop, in those bottles

Led by World Renew and Local Partner Asociación Cristiana de Jóvenes de Nicaragua (ACJ)
8 communities, 201 households, 860 individuals

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