P.O. Box 433 Allenspark, CO 80510

2015-2016 Project Highlights

Tony Brun has just returned from visiting La Semilla del Progreso in Honduras where they are reaching out to an entirely new and even more needy region close to the boarder with El Salvador. At the request of the local mayors and an energetic young priest, La Semilla is now teaching methods of high production organic agriculture to 214 indigenous Lenca farm families. They are learning soil conservation, water management, organic fertilizer production, reforestation and fruit tree planting in 11 communities.

Quetzalí Tacatic checks out an educational display unit in the Maya Cultural Center in Guatemala. Kauffman Museum of Kansas is working with the Maya Cultural Center and the Mobile School for Sustainable Agriculture with exhibit ideas and the design of mobile educational units to enable these programs to share more broadly the strategies of sustainable organic agriculture that have proven so productive when implemented on small Central American farms.

In May, Mary and Paul McKay visited the agricultural work of FUNDAMARCOS in the highlands of Guatemala. Groups of Achí Maya women were delighted to be able to share with the McKays their vegetables grown from the heirloom, non-hybrid seeds donated by the Seattle Seed Company. These women farmers are excited to start harvesting their own seeds from these plants for next year.

Lanny McKay is giving his home in southern California to EPIC. Half of the sale price will be put in a Charitable Remainder Trust that will provide him with lifetime income. This will be the largest single gift EPIC has ever received and will help EPIC build for the future.