Improved Seeds
Quality Protein Maize

Tree Crops
Mango
Avocado
Citrus
Bamboo
Grafting

Vegetable & Tuber Crops
Tissue Culture
and Minisetting

Economic Gains

Nutritional Benefits

Agricultural Education

Protection of the Environment

Descriptions of Haiti's agricultural and environmental crisis abound with dismal statistics. Certainly it is a fact that the country today faces severe agricultural stagnation and acute environmental degradation. However, it is also true that cases exist where technically appropriate interventions have been successful in improving conditions. Sadly, Haiti is faced with one of the lowest per-capita incomes in the western hemisphere and severe ecological damage due to deforestation. Poverty, overpopulation and a lack of technical know-how are the main causes. Despite its rich cultural and artistic background, the primarily agricultural society has been unable to find ways of modernizing farming. In a country where acute poverty and widespread deforestation go hand in hand, solutions have to offer both economic and environmental benefits.

Slash and burn farming, tree-cutting, and destructive environmental practices are all linked to the economic plight of the rural population.

Reinforcing the environment with commerical fruit and spice trees, and bamboo
Since 1985, ORE has produced over a million grafted fruit trees in Haiti. By promoting fruits and other commercial tree crops, experience shows that in time communities start to protect their trees because of the attractive revenue they generate. By providing improved seeds, soil conservation measures, and offering production and marketing assistance, we are able to help the farmers replace subsistence farming with commercially successful agriculture. Increased income from fruit trees producing annual commercial crops helps to remove the economic pressure on local ecosystems. In regions where the program has been able to create concentrated regional fruit production, farmers are beginning to look on orchards of mangos, avocados and citrus as investment opportunities. The ecological impact is clearly visible, the tree cover is increased and soil erosion are reduced. Fruit trees, spices, high value bamboo, suitable for construction and handicrafts, soil conservation measures and leguminous trees such as Calliandra (used as pole for yam production) all add up to a powerful environmental protection package - offering farmers cost-effective solutions that will help preserve the ecology for future generations.

Supporting positive prospects for the future . . .

Although emigration and the boat people phenomenon are widely recognized, it is a fact that few Haitians want to live permanently overseas. Improvements to the quality of rural life, through practical solutions to the basic problems, will make it easier for succeeding generations to adopt an acceptable lifestyle in the country they love. We are committed to bringing these benefits to the rural population.

  

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Economic Gains

Nutritional Benefits

Agricultural Education

Protection of the Environment