ABSTRACT
The lack of economic opportunity in rural areas of Central America has triggered a cascade of impacts resulting from environmental degradation, particularly in places where local communities utilize slash-and-burn agriculture—cutting and burning vegetation each growing season—as their main cropping system. This chapter seeks to demonstrate alternative approaches to slash-and-burn farming through a case study of Sustainable Harvest International (SHI). SHI tackles deforestation and economic constraints by fostering the development of an innovation ecosystem that promotes and improves regenerative agriculture, agroforestry techniques, and entrepreneurial endeavors. This case study focused on 29 participant families residing in four rural communities in the mountainous region of Yoro, northern Honduras. The findings indicate that families incorporated a minimum of four new regenerative agriculture techniques, doubled their environmental conservation initiatives, and accessed credit on a regular basis. Despite lack of access to capital, regenerative agriculture techniques offered participants a means by which they could support themselves and their community through innovation. As such, this chapter explores how participants, through their participation in SHI’s regenerative agriculture focused program, developed a culture of learning and knowledge sharing roles of these innovative practices. Findings also suggest that SHI participants were able to build the structures and institutions necessary to sustain their innovations over time, thus reinforcing their cultural and other practices by using locally available resources.
