Let's Build Gonave, Haiti!

The future goal of the La Gonave Co-op is to have many different farms and homesteads on the island.  All of these farms would be under a self-sustaining cooperative.  The co-op will eventually form a cooperative store.  The store would use the food from the various farms and would provide the food and services the public needs. Imagine a store that is naturally organic due to the cooperative's safety measures and standards of not using harsh chemicals and fertilizers.  Normally these stores in America would have pricy food, however the food on La Gonave would be affordable. While it is some time away, we are working on the plans of creating a Co-Op grocery store.  Obviously the store would be located in Anse-a-Galets.  While we feel that this store will be really needed in the community, we also understand how important it is to have affordable costs. We even have a name and logo already for the store and feel that within the next 2 to 3 years the first store will go live.

One major problem with Haiti's growth is the severe lack of container ports.  Shipping containers have to carry goods and services for people.  In fact if there were no shipping container ports, the world economy would crash.  With shipping ports, while vital, they can be extremely expensive. With a shipping container port you need expensive infrastructure, expensive gantry cranes, rail systems, etc.  Also the expensive cost to run and maintain the ports and the certifications that are needed for the port and employees can be a problem. See the Port of Seattle below in Seattle, WA. La Gonave needs some sort of port in order to have goods and services delivered.  One way of solving all of this and for a very cost effective start is using a hovercraft.  Yes the US military landed a hovercraft on the island before.  A hovercraft can handle the rough sea, the coral reef and shallow water, the rocky soil of La Gonave, and it is by far cheaper than the container port.  See a

In many of the site's older blogs I talk about rail.  Most of the options are light rail vehicles.  The idea is to either connect the entire island by rail of some sort, and possibly start a leg connecting Anse-a-Galets to Pointe-a-Raquettes first.  Light rail is cheaper than heavy rail.  Think of the New York subway system as heavy rail.   Light rail is the type of rail that forms the backbone to Portland and Seattle's transit lines.  Then you have streetcars which are even lighter in weight than a light rail train.  These can look like San Francisco's iconic streetcar, or the modern streetcar that you see in Portland and Seattle. There is another option as well that is lighter than the streetcars and even cheaper.  A typical light rail vehicle can weigh 100,000 lbs, and cost as much as $6 million per vehicle.  A Utlra Light Rail Vehicle costs as much at $1 million or less, and weighs about 10,000 lbs.  Many tourist resorts and destinations have these types of vehicles.

  If you thought the honeybee project was a large task for an island like La Gonave, what would be the thought of Talipia farms.  While it sounds crazy due to the island's lack of water, it is something that could be highly successful.  Our initial plan like all would be to start very small.  We would get a few fingerlings to start.  These fish will of course grow to be the breeders. From there we will start raising the fish to sell on the open market.  It could be a project that we keep in-house, and not a product that the entire co-op would be a part of.  Reasons for this is the cost of products.  Many times it can be very expensive to get the tanks, solar panels to run pumps, pumps, tubing, and water.  So for that, we may take up the task of raising the fish and at a later point getting other co-op members involved. Talipia could be a push into the right direction for farmers on La Gonave.  From there other types of fish, and seafood could be farm raised.  This would

One question I got was what if there is corruption on the island of La Gonave or within Haiti by politicians.  My response.  "We have a Zero Tolerance Policy when it comes to corruption"!  This not only goes for politicians, but also for civilians. Our Co-op is designed with clawback measures that will punish individuals or cities that participate in corruption.  For example, lets say a farmer claims that he started a program that the Co-op created.  We as a Co-op will decide if that person should be voted out of the Co-op, pay a fine, or be put on probation.  Not being  apart of the Co-op can be devastating to a farmer as it will destroy their selling and marketing power.  The Co-op is working with many large companies to eventually buy our crops and goods.  Being voted out or suspended will make that farmer rely solely on the local market which will impact their way of life.  Also if the farmer was renting out equipment, such as our beehives, not only will the equipment

Like parts of the mainland, La Gonave has too many free roaming farm animals.  Cows, chickens, goats, pigs, etc all do major damage to food production and the environment on the island. Chickens are not really an issue, and in fact are beneficial to roam free.  They do spread manure, and clear bugs and pests away from farm crops. Cows not only destroy farm crops but also eat freshly planted trees.  Goats are horrible, but exists everywhere.  They are known for getting into areas that are fenced off, and will eat everything.  Pigs will also eat just about anything and destroy crops. If La Gonave is to improve, these free roaming animals need to be put in pens or tied up.  Imagine a tourist who comes to the island and discovers goats on the porch of the hotel.  Not only is it bad business, but it destroys the precious food that is produced for PEOPLE.  While there are laws out there the is to prevent the free roaming animals, it is up to the Haitians on the island to stop the free

One of my associates who recently came back from La Gonave reported that honeybees were spotted on the island.  While this associate isn't an expert beekeeper, I can't confirm if it was in fact a honeybee.  If there was a honeybee, then that means a hive or several hives exist.  Maybe not from a traditional beekeeper sense of raising bees, but just wild hives that exist. This is critical and very important in many ways.  For one it means that our operation will be successful because if wild honeybees exist then there is currently enough food to support them.  Secondly it means that we can expand more rapidly.  With wild bees, they can be captured and put into hives and start production, drones could mate with the queens from our colony, etc.  It's very exciting and I think that we have something here that could be a major success. Go Gonave!

Bidens Pilosa Picture Update. This is what the Bidens looks like after a month and a half.  The plants now have a purple appearance to the stems.  They are more woody in texture and if I extend the plants out, they are at least 10 inches.  These plants look as if they are going to be more in the form of a bush. Keep in mind that while these plants should have bloomed by now with flowers, they were transplanted three different times.  The greenhouse failed to do what we needed, however the seeds sprouted three days after being transplanted. These plants will do well in a tropical environment more so that the mild winter of Seattle.  Possibly the plants will bloom and if so, we will show what these blooms look like.  These plants are needed for the honeybee industry and will be a great wild plant that currently exists in Haiti.  We probably won't do any additional updates on the plant and consider this experiment a success. Look for this plant to be showing up soon on La G

The Bidens Pilosa are still going strong even though here in Seattle the weather has been somewhat cool.  The stems of the plant are now a purple color and the plant itself is starting to get more woody in appearance.  The plant doesn't stick straight up as it did in the past, but if it did, I would say the plant is over 6 inches tall.  Still no flowers, but there seems to be a few places on the plant that seem like a flower is about to appear. Given that we have had steady sun for a few days I think given a little more time we should see some flowers.  I am still holding out hope that the plant can make it to bloom stage.  So we will have to wait a bit longer. The Wildflower Association is in full swing.  We will be sending a few seeds over to the island in the next few days.  By June these plants will have a start on the island.  We still expect that by October the seeds will have time to form and bloom.  The Coral Vine already exists on the mainland of Haiti, and blooms ver

We will be expanding our agro-business side of things by testing the soil on La Gonave for the raising of Pinto Beans.  Pinto Beans are an excellent source of protein, and packs many vitamins in them.  I grew up on them as a child living in the south. It is used also as re-fried beans with Mexican cuisine.  I basically ate them as they were after being soaked and cooked in a crock-pot.  The best thing about pinto beans are you can get full quick, and they are very healthy.  Also the beans can grow in many different types of soil and with little to no fertilizer. In Kentucky where I grew up the soil was a red clay type of soil.  Pinto beans grew fine there in that type of soil.  In New Mexico with it's dry sand, I was again able to raise Pinto beans with very little water, and relied on the annual monsoon rains. So this brings me to La Gonave.  I think that this could be a fast easy crop that can possibly handle the soil conditions there.  We will have two test.  One would be

The total cost we are investing in the honeybee program on La Gonave is over $5,000 and could be as high as a $10,000 US investment.  This includes a fodder program, some minor reforestation, honeybee hive, hive box, equipment, beautification, and education.  We also have inquiries to locate hives at the other end of the island at Pointe Des Latanier was well as two other locations.  This program is starting to expand and it is vital to get Phase 1 started and completed.  Phase 1 will be completed in a year.  Phase 2 will start up while Phase 1 is developed.  We expect honeybees to be on La Gonave in October of 2015.  We also have contacts with another supplier of honeybees, so the program could move much faster than anticipated. Go Gonave!

Below are photos of what the current state of the public park at Anse-a-Galets looks like.  The park has colorful displays of the national colors, but there is peeling paint in a few areas, and the black gates do little to uplift the surrounding area.  Also concrete planters have no vegetation, and many areas that were to have trees do not.  In fact the section that has great shade trees are used by locals to sell goods. Obviously the park needs more shade, more paint, and more vegetation.  To use, this is a step-by-step process. We want to add coral vine along the entire length of the fence that surrounds the park.  This will not only support the emerging honeybee industry, but will also provide a beautiful cover around the park.  See the pic below of what could surround the park using the current fence as support. As you can see, the coral vine would cover all aspects of the fence and give the area a vibrancy.  The plant can have either white, or pink flowers, howeve

This is something we have been working on for some time.  Due to many different needs having a group of mostly volunteers for the refoestation of La Gonave, as well as preservation is crucial.  This group will also help the newly formed Honeybee industry on the island. Future beautification projects will be due to this group making it possible.  While the name of the association mentions wildflowers, the group also will focus on trees as well.  Most of the trees and wildflowers will be native, while others non-native species are for reasons of industry or reforestation. This group will be instrumental in building pollinator gardens and then explaining to the public and beekeepers what each flower does. This is exciting! Go Gonave!

I will list some of the reasons below why we choose the Top Bar Hive, specifically the Top Bar Barrel Bee Hive.  I mentioned some of the reasons behind it in the previous blog, but now I will go into more detail. The Top Bar Barrel hive: Was chosen for its fast and affordable design.  Due to using only wood for most the leg supports, it lowers the cost of the hive.  Most hives are all wood, so the typical top bar hive would be all wood as oppose to our choice which will use wood for the support and top bars.  Since wood is expensive it would slow the project down as locals wouldn't be able to financially support the project. The top bar doesn't use frames and use a "top bar" that has a strip of beeswax.  Again from a financial point of view, less wood from a traditional frame means the cost of the hive is cheaper and faster to build. The top bar hive is similar to how bees naturally make honeycomb, but the barrel top bar hive goes a step further.  H

The desire to have a robust and economical honeybee program meant that a top bar hive is the way to go.  The top bar hive is a hive box where you can see all of the frames at one time.  There are no additional boxes that go on top of the structure, and the top bar hive is believed to be the natural way honeybees make comb.  Given that once these hives are built they don't need any additional modifications, and if the bees exceed the limits of the hive, then the hive would be split into a new hive. The top bar hive is traditionally more expensive to purchase than most of the other types of hives.  We however found a way to build the hives where the program could be rapidly expanded and locals could build a hive without really specialized tools. Below is the photo from instructables.com where it shows what the exact design we will use for the La Gonave Honeybee Program. While the color may vary, the blueprints for this design has been obtained.  The design ensures a st

I have mentioned all three names in many of the blogs that are on this site.  Let's start with La Gonave.  This is home base for Let's Build La Gonave, Haiti, it is the focus area of Hurko Co..  It is the island that is forgotten, well almost!  Then you have Vetiver Grass. Did you know that Haiti is the number one producer of Vetiver Grass?  It produces 50% of the worlds vetiver, and it is even used to make perfume.  Not only is the grass great for water retention, reducing soil erosion, but it makes good fodder for livestock, and it can be a replacement for charcoal.  That's right, in Haiti's backyard is a product that could easily substitute trees and not only does it grow back every year, it is cleaner to burn than charcoal.  It can be made into pellets, or left in it's original form.  Either way the product can be used to power a Biomass power plant. So what does Let's Build La Gonave, Haiti have to do with this.  Well we feel that La Gonave could easil

I will be giving some information on the Bidens Pilosa.  This would be a month after they were just seed.  The plants didn't flower, but I will go into why, and what we plan on doing next with the plant. Keep in mind this very same plant will be planted on La Gonave soon. Stay tuned! Go Gonave

As I have been told and even expereienced, the cost of doing business in Haiti is too high.  This can be said when doing business with the private and public sector.  I will focus on the private sector. Given that Haiti is one of the poorest places in the world, and given that it is the poorest country in the Northern Hemisphere, the cost of doing business is very expensive.  I live in Seattle, WA where the average house price is $500,000 US.  The average apartment (1bdrm) is about $1,400 to $1,800 and we are talking a very small space of 480 to 650 sq ft.  With that said Seattle also has many billionaires who call it home.  It is the world headquarters of Expedia, Costco, Microsoft, Starbucks, Amazon, and Warehauser, to name a few.  Also the worlds richest man, Bill Gates call Puget Sound home. So it is understandable that America's fastest city is expensive to live and do business.  Haiti on the other hand is also very pricy to do business.  Just looking at hotel costs, they