An indigenous community has managed to place some 5,800 kilos of high-quality squash on the market in the U.S. city of Miami, with the support of an international cooperation project. The sale is the culmination of a sustainable agriculture project carried out by the community of Santa María del Carbón, in the northeastern department of Olancho, which is inhabited by the Pech, an indigenous people in danger of extinction.

Thanks to the support of a government food security program, members of the indigenous community were trained in environmentally friendly farming techniques and income generation, said Julio Figueroa of the Secretariat for Ethnic Groups, the promoter of the project.

The next step is to scale up the initiative to other Pech communities scattered throughout the northern department of Yoro, he told Tierramérica.