Guatemala: Story of change. Improving nutrition – from new partnerships promoting a new bean variety

“Before, people were not really interested” says Lionel Ozorio, president of the ATESCATEL seed cooperative, “but the CDAIS project has helped to bring people together and now we see much more buy-in.” This innovation partnership is building key functional capacities amongst producer associations, and now, bringing other stakeholders onboard to help improve nutritional security through innovative approaches in promoting a new bean variety with increased production potential and nutritional content. “And now we are getting the message across in better ways through improved dialogue with a much wider range of actors.”

This story of change from Guatemala is part of a series of stories occurred under the EU-funded CDAIS project, aimed at making agricultural innovation systems more efficient and sustainable in meeting the demands of farmers, agri-business and consumers. CDAIS  brings partners together and uses continuous learning cycles to address the challenges and opportunities in and around selected ‘innovation niche partnerships’ in eight pilot countries in Central America, Africa and Asia.