By Marie Marthe Saint Cyr | Executive Director
The Center for Plantain Propagation (CPP), established for over a decade ago, teaching and training planters on the modification of the plan, a main staple in Haiti. That changed a whole community and resulted in the emergence of a new plantain that is resistant to sigatoka disease.
The work continues in the gardens of CPP. The staff plans for each season of planting. Following the tomato harvest, as the new year began CPP planted 39 marmites (each marmite = 5lbs) or 195 pounds of seeds for beans that in five months yielded 179 marmites or 895 lbs of beans. That would bring a revenue of 49,175.000 HDG. That was with some challenge since a section of the garden did not flourish, due to some natural elements.
That was promptly followed with tilling, preparing the land for a new season of tomatoes for the next four months. This season was affected by the unexpected inundation that impacts the harvest. In prior years, the production was nearly a certainty that the harvest will be consistent but both draught and inundation are shifting the food production expectation and projection. The question is can we have a third harvest before year end. as we approached the "hurricane season", we are more and more concerned about the major downpours and potential storms among other things affecting food production.
In the meantime, we have produced 20,000 seedlings of lemon trees and citrus fruit as the citrus plants have been affected by diseases reducing the availability of lemon, lime and grapefruit. This will add to 5000 lime trees produced last year. One observation, Mango trees seems to suffer this year in their productive capacity to give fruits. Reasons are not clear at this time and may be attributed to the shift in rain.
In addition to the challenges the shift in weather brings to each area of the country and espicifically in Grow Mornes where CPP is. The activities at CPP allows the Lambi staff along with the community farmer to learn and create new strategies as we plant and have similar experiences.
Other challenges: Finding agro hand for seeding and harvesting is becoming more and more difficult as many of the new generation does not consider agriculture a viable work and revenue producing and do not intend to work the land. The migration to cities and urban areas is broadly evident in the skirts of the capital and other major cities. Jobs are also not so readily available in the country where the level of unemployment continue to rise above 40%. Agricultural entrants are more expensive every year. In land where there is no irrigation, the longer drought is literally destroying the potential for revenue for many farming families.
Our committment is to work with rural partners to change the dynamics and render stronger and more effective the strategies for continuous and productive harvests among rural farmers in Haiti.
We are very grateful for your financial support that helps keep the work and food production in our communities though education, providing care to allas
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