By SAMANTHA SIZEMORE
samantha@du2.byu.edu
Members of a small community in Bolivia are eating healthier now thanks to students at San Andres University in Bolivia and BYU's Ezra Taft Benson Agriculture and Food Institute.
The Benson Institute has been building underground greenhouses called walipinis and bed-sized vegetable plots called pankah ruyus since the early 1990s. Students and faculty of Latin American universities are currently doing research in Guatemala, Ecuador and Bolivia.
'Our mission is to improve nutrition in the developing world,' said Paul Johnston, director of the Benson Institute.
Johnston said having local universities play a significant role in the project helps perpetuate the program. When the students finish their research, they must write lessons for the local farmers to learn from the students' findings, Johnston said.
The walipini is a greenhouse built partially underground. Pankah ruyus are small plots that are built above-ground. Workers grow small crops of lettuce, beets, lima beans, tomatoes, carrots, garlic and other vitamin-rich vegetables.
The terms for the gardens and greenhouses are Aymaran -- the language of the indigenous group of people for whom they were built. Walipini translates roughly into 'This is awesome!' Pankah ruyu means 'bed of flowers.'
Luis Iturry, a student at San Andres University in Bolivia, will be at BYU for one year to finish his research on the walipinis and pankah ruyus. Iturry, who spoke through a translator, said he is writing lessons to teach the people how to maintain the walipinis and pankah ruyus when the researchers are gone.
'Adults don't like to eat vegetables because they're not used to them. So we work with the children to teach them to like them,' Iturry said.
Iturry said he works with the project because he wants to give people the opportunity to get educated about nutrition and because he likes being able to improve the lives of the children.
'I cannot help the whole country, but at least I can help a few people,' he said.
Normal farming in these communities is difficult, Iturry said. Temperatures get as low as 4 degrees Celcius at night and as high as 24 degress Celcius during the day. Building the walipinis underground helps to regulate the temperature of the greenhouses.
The Aymaran people grew vegetables before the Benson Institute intervened, but most of these were taken to the market to be sold because they were more valuable. The people then bought less expensive food to eat that was also less nutritious. Iturry said their diet lacked vitamins A and C, and several minerals essential to the development of children.
Johnston said that eventually the Benson Institute would like to have BYU students working on the projects in Latin America.