Long-Term, Hands-On Training in Sustainable Farming for Families in the Tropics to Improve Nutrition and Food Security
Long-term technical assistance is necessary for subsistence farmers in the tropics to improve family nutrition and achieve lasting food security while also restoring the natural environment. Sustainable Harvest International’s joint approach to the social, economic and environmental factors that often lead to family malnutrition is innovative, effective and efficient.
About You
Section 1: About You
First Name
Christina
Last Name
Becherer
Organization
Sustainable Harvest International
Country
United States
Section 2: About Your Organization
Organization Name
Sustainable Harvest International
Organization Website
Organization Phone
207.669.8254
Organization Address
779 North Bend Road, Surry, ME 04684
Is your organization a
Non‐profit/NGO/citizen sector organization
Organization Country
United States
Your idea
Name Your Project
Long-Term, Hands-On Training in Sustainable Farming for Families in the Tropics to Improve Nutrition and Food Security
Country your work focuses on
Honduras
Describe Your Idea
Long-term technical assistance is necessary for subsistence farmers in the tropics to improve family nutrition and achieve lasting food security while also restoring the natural environment. Sustainable Harvest International’s joint approach to the social, economic and environmental factors that often lead to family malnutrition is innovative, effective and efficient.
Website URL
Innovation
What makes your idea unique?
The long-term, hands-on approach used by Sustainable Harvest International (SHI) to cultivate family nutrition and food security promotes a lasting, healthy relationship to the natural world which benefits not only the small-scale farmers, but all people and the planet as well. SHI's grassroots approach of hiring local staff and promoting cooperative sharing of knowledge and resources serves to break the cycle of paternalism for small-scale producers in the developing world. SHI works largely with indigenous and marginalized villages that are difficult to access and therefore are often ignored by other non-governmental or governmental agencies.
Don Cheyo, a graduate of SHI's Honduras Program, is one example of the program’s positive results. During his five years with the program, he worked side-by-side with a local field trainer to implement sustainable land-use practices. He said, “Before I grew just corn and coffee and now look at what I have done for myself, for my children, for my grandchildren... I grow what I need here. We eat better and I live with the land planting good food, building up the soil and planting trees. I have learned not to burn... We are now making compost with red worms, something I didn't know how to do before. I use the compost here on my crops and hope to sell some too. I give some worms to my neighbors so they can use them to have better harvests too. Now I can sell what I grow and I have purchased this land for my sons and their children.”
Do you have a patent for this idea?
Impact
This Entry is about (Issues)
What impact have you had?
Since its founding in 1997, Sustainable Harvest International (SHI) has worked with 1,769 families in 151 communities throughout Honduras, Panama, Nicaragua and Belize. While using techniques that permit a better quality of life and promote biodiversity, families working with SHI have seen their income levels rise by as much as 800%, with the average being a 250% increase. As their nutritional and economic lives improve, there are improvements in other areas such as children attending school for more years, more gender equality and environmental preservation.
Honduras Participant Vicenta Mejía is one example of SHI’s success. She said, “I really like working in agriculture, but you can imagine what it’s like having the land but no seeds and no tools to work with. That’s why my husband and I decided to work with SHI, because they supply us with the knowledge - how to plant, how to fertilize - and they provide us with the seeds. So what more could we ask for? All we need is our hands and the decision to make changes in our lives, for our own well-being and that of the environment. Since I’ve been working with Sustainable Harvest, I’ve been able to improve my children’s nutrition because before, all we had for food was rice and beans. Now we have cabbages, tomatoes, sweet peppers, cucumbers, mustard-seed, onions, beetroot and carrots. So we’re better off because we don’t need to buy anything anymore and we can even manage to sell part of what we harvest.”
Problem
Farmers in the tropics are desperate to learn ways of growing the food they need to support their families without destroying their environment and without resorting to farming techniques that damage their own health or the health of their children. In the rural villages where Sustainable Harvest International works, over 75% of families have never had access to garden vegetables. Families have diets consisting only of rice or tortillas and beans or yucca. Items like tomatoes and carrots are considered luxury items that only the wealthy can afford.
Actions
In the first two years of the program, local field trainers provide materials and training that allow families to diversify their crops, improve family nutrition, increase production of staple crops in a sustainable manner and improve their soil quality. Families are taught during this time how to create forest gardens or agroforestry systems which incorporate a basic vegetable garden as well as a variety of fruit, hardwood, leguminous, spice and nut trees. As participants transition from slash-and-burn practices to more productive growing techniques they adopt innovations including multi-story plots, alley cropping, mulching, composting and making natural pesticides and fertilizers.
All of the skills learned with SHI allow participants to provide for their families, using the same piece of land each year without needing to slash-and-burn more forest. In addition to working with individual families, SHI field trainers work with women’s groups and village schools. SHI recently started an organic gardening project in Nicaragua for street children, where they learn about nutrition and the healthy produce from their organic garden will supply their drop-in pantry.
Results
SHI has significantly raised the standard of living for thousands of Central Americans, bringing over 1,769 families above the poverty line. With measured results and demonstrated success, SHI is at a tipping point for moving rural areas into a paradigm of environmental, economic and social sustainability. Since 1997, SHI and its affiliates have successfully…
• Established over 5,945 vegetable, fruit and medicinal gardens.
• Taught nutritional health and environmental education in over 120 rural village schools.
• Planted more than 2.5 million native fruit and hardwood trees.
• Converted over 12,000 acres to sustainable and diversified land use.
• Graduated 49 communities from the program.
What will it take for your project to be successful over the next three years? Please address each year separately, if possible.
SHI’s work with a participating family is generally carried out in five phases over the course of five years.
1: Selection and Initial Evaluation of Participating Families;
2: Improved Nutrition and Agricultural Production;
3: Promoting Diversification and the Introduction to Commercialization;
4: Strengthening of Sustainability and Entrepreneurial Techniques;
5: Preparation for Institutional Graduation and Beyond.
Graduates act as ongoing mentors, helping with workshops and trainings.
What would prevent your project from being a success?
Although there are many success stories like Señora Mejía’s and Señor Cheyo, there are still countless families in desperate need. SHI’s waiting list is growing fast and we need support to reach the hundreds of families requesting assistance in the coming year. Two challenges that the program must continue to overcome, with the help of supporters and partners, are the rising material costs during the global recession and the natural disasters prone to tropical areas.
How many people will your project serve annually?
1001‐10,000
What is the average monthly household income in your target community, in US Dollars?
Less than $50
Does your project seek to have an impact on public policy?
Sustainability
What stage is your project in?
Operating for more than 5 years
In what country?
Honduras
Is your initiative connected to an established organization?
Yes
If yes, provide organization name.
Sustainable Harvest International
How long has this organization been operating?
More than 5 years
Does your organization have a Board of Directors or an Advisory Board?
Yes
Does your organization have any non-monetary partnerships with NGOs?
Yes
Does your organization have any non-monetary partnerships with businesses?
Yes
Does your organization have any non-monetary partnerships with government?
Yes
Please tell us more about how these partnerships are critical to the success of your innovation.
Sustainable Harvest International (SHI) maintains partnerships with businesses, schools, congregations, clubs and more. Without these partnerships, SHI would not be able to operate with the same efficiency and effectiveness that we currently achieve.
SHI always partners with a local organization when beginning work in an area. SHI’s reforestation efforts go hand in hand in working with local community groups on watershed restoration; and SHI also collaborates with other international organizations on special projects. For instance, SHI recently joined forces with the Red Cross to install solar composting latrines in Belize.
SHI does not have any form of partnership with the U.S. government, but in some cases our affiliates work with local municipal governments. For example, in Santa Barbara, Honduras, the local government has collaborated with SHI on tree planting. SHI also coordinates Smaller World Tours for volunteers to gain first-hand knowledge of the issues the organization is working to address.
What are the three most important actions needed to grow your initiative or organization?
1. Amplify organizational outreach and public awareness of our work.
2. Increase the number of non-monetary and monetary partnerships with businesses, community groups and organizations.
3. Secure new and ongoing funding sources.
By increasing the number and variety of partnerships, SHI will be able to take on more innovative ventures such as the successful school program with Rutilia Del Carmen Pena grade school, situated in a remote and mountainous area of Honduras. The school director, Maynor Arita, said, "This is the first time that an organization has come to our school to help us because we are so far from Azacualpa (the nearest large town) and because of the terrible path no one has ever tried to come where we are.”
First, SHI provided the tools and training to establish a school garden. The students spent three months caring for their garden with a field trainer, and things went so well that they harvested sweet peppers, tomatoes, cucumbers, radishes, cabbages, corn and beans. According to Maynor Arita, "the children ate until they could burst and they brought the vegetables to their homes and ate with their parents and little brothers and sisters.” The students produced enough vegetables to sell and raise funds that were used to improve the school. SHI also created a tree nursery with 1,000 plants of mahogany, cedar and yellow cassia. The students were then able to reforest the watershed of the community and the school grounds. After seeing such motivation on the part of the students, SHI established a fund for the creation of a social entrepreneurship project maintained by the students with support from their teachers.
The Story
What was the defining moment that led you to this innovation?
While serving as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Panamá in the early 1990’s, Florence Reed learned that tropical deforestation has a tragic human component. When her assignment to teach school fell through, Reed was sent to the village of Santa Rita, a few hours outside of Panama City. When she asked the people what they wanted her to do for them, they replied, “Help us rejuvenate our land by planting trees.” Desperate farmers longed to learn ways of growing food to keep their families from starving without destroying their environment or resorting to farming techniques that damage their own health and the health of their children.
Reed first taught farmers to grow trees between their crops to put nitrogen back in the soil. Within a year, one farmer went from growing just enough food for his family to having enough to sell and even earning money to buy his daughters dresses for the first time. Returning to the U.S., Reed formed a Board of Directors and Sustainable Harvest International (SHI) was incorporated as a nonprofit organization in May 1997. By then, SHI’s first two field trainers had begun work in rural Honduras. SHI has expanded its reach from the one program in Honduras to include programs in Panamá, Belize and Nicaragua.
Recent Article in DeltaSky Magazine on SHI: http://www.sustainableharvest.org/pub_articles/DeltaArticle.pdf
Tell us about the social innovator behind this idea.
Florence Reed believes that when people work together, things change for the better. As the founder and president of SHI, Reed spends her time guiding the organization forward and bringing together a wide variety of individuals to create a better future. In recent years she has received an honorary doctorate for her work along with many awards such as the Yves Rocher Women of the Earth award and the Distinguished Service Medal from the Garden Club of America in May.
How did you first hear about Changemakers?
Personal contact at Changemakers
If through another, please provide the name of the organization or company
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 | 130 weeks agoChristina Becherer updated this Competition Entry. |
| 130 weeks agoChristina Becherer updated this Competition Entry. |
| 130 weeks agoChristina Becherer submitted this idea. |
