Women Entrepreneurs
Rosenie, our chief baker, just finished her weekly batch of breadfruit flour biscuits.
The sellers receive their supply of sweet biscuits from the factory.
This season they are using the dehydrator to make flour from sweet potatoes, plantains, breadfruits and cassava.
Drying Foods for Better Nutrition
We are running full force these days drying all kinds of foods to sell in the dry season with our new commercial-size dehydrator from Trees That Feed Foundation. There is very little fresh fruits and vegetables in the dry season so preserving food is essential for good nutrition in Haiti. We are drying everything from moringa leaf powder for added nutrition in soups, to sweet potato flour for baby food. Above is our largest endeavor. We dry breadfruit and grind it to flour and then make a hearty sweet biscuit with it. We are training women to make and sell this breadfruit biscuit so that everyone is eating well and many more women have jobs.
Agroforestry
For over 10 years now, our nursery stays full of a large variety of highly valued trees that are good for the restoration of the environment and for agroforestry too.
Filling an order of 3000 trees for a church high in the mountains north of La Sucrerie Henry.
People come on foot or donkey to carry their favorite trees home after a rain.
A Never Ending Demand for Trees
The demand is what keeps director, Karen Nicolas, inspired and working. Pastors and agronomists request large numbers of trees. Local people flood to the nursery after a rain and take all they can carry. But what truly motivates her are the phone calls of appreciation she gets daily from the local people who share her vision of a greener, richer Haiti.
Calculations show that every time there is another $100 of monthly donations, THTP can employ a smallholder farmer to grow 200 trees. They weed and water the seedlings frequently during the first 6 so they survive long-term. After that first 6 months, we end the financial support to care for those trees and start with another group of 200 tree seedlings with that same ongoing donation. The result is an exponential number of trees surviving from just a handful of donors. It’s exciting to see farmers happy to get a green job!
