Let's Build Gonave, Haiti!

By now you know where my main objective is.  The overall improvement for the people on La Gonave is to start with agriculture.  When you look at it, people have farmed for many generations on the island, however poor tools, lack of innovation, poor soil, lack of water, lack of seeds, etc.  There are many things that can be done, but La Gonave must have farmers who will become experts in the crops that they raise. Some NGO's are supplying seeds to farmers, and even go as far as providing water catchment systems, but the support ends there.  Providing seeds and water simply isn't enough.  Sure the farmer will raise the crops more successfully than they would have without adequate water, but again, this simply isn't enough. Farmers have to understand how to conserve and be strong supporters of conservation.  Conservation of trees, land, water, etc.  Then they have to be supporters of strong self sufficient farming practices.  This includes more ...

I wanted to discuss the agribusiness plan a little bit.  I have gotten many emails asking what does it look like, how will it happen, etc. As I have mentioned in many different blogs, a cooperative will be setup to handle and govern all of the farming programs.  It helps lower cost and give a strong competitive advantage when you have a cooperative.  So that is a brief overview of how it will happen. It will take a few good farmers to make the co-op work and it will take a new way of doing things to make it work.  While I have discussed beekeeping and tilapia farming, there will also be a focus on actual vegetable and fruit crops.  I mentioned things like the Pinto Bean for example, but I haven't discussed how the fields will be prepared. Major issues such as poor soil, lack of water, free roaming animals, and lack of farm equipment make normal open field farming very labor intensive.  The lack of basic controls really hurt and affect the crop produc...

I have been working on a plan, call 20-20-20.  It centers around farming on the island of Gonave using simple yet proven techniques.  Food production is low on Gonave and many cite this as a problem. With the plan, some 400 acres could be developed in 5 years. Types of farming would be from beef to fish, and from honey to pineapples.  The approach would be to start off with three different types of farming, which in Year 1 would be Apples, Honey, and beans.  There would be several farms of 1 acre in size, which allows for much less overhead, and also it would work well in areas with a small working plot of land. I'm currently in talks with a few of the current NGO's that are on the island to try and make this happen.  Given the small start up cost, I think this will be a success, and would even allow for enough food to be sold to Haiti.  We are also in talks with the Haitian government on the ability of leasing land to do this.  Stay tuned to more...