LDS vegetable program helps Bolivians

SURIQUINA, Bolivia — William Guerrero is building a reputation as a first-rate soccer player here in this remote region of the Bolivia Altiplano some 14,000 feet above sea level.

This is an impoverished area. William will likely never play on an organized team. He may never own a pair of cleats. But the 12-year-old boy can dribble his well-worn ball along the hardened paths of soil outside his home like a veteran.

Young William is strong and looks like he could run forever.

No surprise, said his mother, Bernita Choque. When William's not at school or outside playing soccer with his many siblings, he's likely eating something. Over the past year, William and his family have been enjoying a more healthy, balanced diet thanks to an LDS Church-sponsored greenhouse project that is bringing spinach, carrots and other vitamin-rich produce to a region where vegetables are typically scarce.

The people of the Bolivian Altiplano have long existed on a diet of meat and potatoes. The climate here is simply too harsh for traditional farming and reliable plant growth of most types of vegetables. As a result, many people here live in a perpetual state of vitamin starvation.

Historically, "the (Altiplano) people are malnourished," said Wade Sperry, an agronomist working as a field operations manager for the welfare department of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Such malnourishment, he explained, can cause developmental problems and hinder growth and brain development.

Recognizing the need to incorporate fresh vegetables into the diet of LDS Altiplano families, the church introduced a culture-changing technology here in the form of family underground greenhouses. Dozens of earthen greenhouses can now be found outside Altiplano homes, including William's.

Made of adobe and other simple building materials, the greenhouses are providing families with year-round access to tomatoes, spinach, lettuce, peppers, carrots and a produce section's worth of other vitamin-rich veggies.

With the assistance of the church's Benson Institute Office in La Paz, some 100 families have built greenhouses over the past two years. Most of the families are LDS, but many non-LDS families also have been included in the project. The greenhouses are typically built underground where the temperature remains constant, allowing for perpetual harvests, Sperry said.

Most of the greenhouses are about 5 feet deep, 6 feet wide and usually 10 to 15 feet long. After digging a rectangular hole, a wooden frame is built that typically rises about two feet above the ground. A roof made of fiberglass or plastic is then stretched across the frame.