Now that we have an extremely valuable grinder, we need a secure place to store it. Since it runs on a gasoline motor, we use it outdoors to avoid filling the depo with gas fumes and contaminating the flour.
When no one is around to watch the mill, we have to move it inside. Since we use it daily, it's difficult for our team and places unnecessary stress on the grinder, so we're looking to close the porch on our depo with iron bars. The iron bars will protect the mill and allow us to store milled products. Getting these bars is a priority, but unfortunately, they cost $800.
Please consider donating to support our mill investment which is an investment in the security and future of the communities we serve in Haiti.
A New Phone
Our main phone for communication broke this week. Luckily, we had some extra funds on reserve and invested in a new phone. This new phone will allow our nursery manager, Enel, to take more rich photos and videos to share with our newsletter subscribers and social media followers, along with supporting improved tree tracking.
Tree Tracking
One of our principal jobs is checking up on the trees people take home. This week Tikouto, our tree tracker, visited several farmers, took photos of their new avocado and Breadnut trees, and uploaded the trees to the Greenstand Map.
We now have a Haitian agronomist in Greenstand identifying all the trees and taking statistics on survival. The most important part of reforestation is knowing when and why a tree dies. Greenstands data gives that information.
Goat Proof Fencing At Our Second Nursery
Our team is building a hybrid living fence to keep grazing animals and curious neighbors out of our nursery in Boileau, Haiti. After setting the posts, they placed and secured barbed wire on the posts and wrapped the wire the length of the perimeter. Unfortunately, goats will even dig under barbed wire, so they’ve been planting cacti, called Plan de Lab. Our team uproots them from a location where they’re overgrown and replants them along the fence line. As the plants grow, they’ll grow around the wire, improving the effectiveness of the fence.
This second location will also be affordable because we won’t need to build a greenhouse since there’s an abundance of shade.
Making Fine Flour With Our New Mill
The grinder is working amazingly. We’re thankful to Trees That Feed for helping us purchase the mill.
We’re excited that people are developing new ways to use breadfruit flour. Now, we are searching for a high-quality plastic bag to seal the flour for long shelf life and for selling in the cities of Haiti.
Enel's Unfortunate Injury
A few weeks ago, Enel, our nursery manager and team leader in Haiti, badly scraped his leg while getting off the motorcycle. Unfortunately, he kept working, even though he has been in a lot of pain and not sleeping well. He's visited many doctors in the area over the last weeks who gave him creams and antibiotics, but the wound still hadn't healed. So today, Enel decided to travel an hour on the motorcycle to see a wound specialist. For the first time, a doctor bandaged him, and the pain immediately subsided. On Friday morning, Enel will go back for more treatment.
The health of our team always comes before project needs. Wounds that are ignored can become fatal; in fact, many people die yearly due to infections that are left untreated.
Thank you to all of our donors. Through their support, Enel was able to get proper treatment.
Enel's Favorite Day
One of Enel's favorite workdays is filling seedling bags. On these days, Enel gets to hire people from all over the village to work, talk, laugh, and play music. And each day, he offers everyone a big meal as a thank you for their work. Enel also keeps a list of names and rotates the work schedule to keep it fair and fun for everyone in the community.
Repurposing A Second Nursery
We're closing in the land around our original nursery site in Cavaillon. This location offers an older nursery setting that is being reborn for the first time since Hurricane Matthew wiped it out in 2018. We've added more land, a house/depo, and a deep-water well to water trees year-round and for the whole community to have access to water.
Luckily, like LaSikri, this site is well shaded, so there's no need to invest in costly greenhouse infrastructure. The trees in Cavaillon, many of which are wide-reaching mangos, protect new seedlings from hard rain and excessive sunlight. And with the new fence, we'll be able to keep out grazing livestock that may wander over from our neighbors' lands
Cashews To Plant
Cashews are a high-value crop that grows quickly. They also have a high survival rate, even in the summer sun and mountainsides. Our long-term goal is to support the Haitian communities in exporting cashews to maintain a consistent income stream.
Currently, we're in talks with several organizations and discussing how to collaborate on exporting cashew nuts, cacao pods, breadfruit flour, and many of our other tree products. Being able to offer regular exports will guarantee jobs and biodiversity for generations.
A New Mill!
Our Nursery Manager, Enel, searched the streets of Les Cayes until he found a brand new mill for the nursery. It's up and running at home in LaSikri.
We primarily plan to use the mill to produce breadfruit flour, increasing the demand for breadfruit trees in the region. We'll also be able to grind cacao and increase interest in planting cacao trees, which we know has a lot of value once fully grown. Through increasing our production, we'll be expanding on one of THTP missions, which allows communities to produce a variety of crops from their trees.
We also realize that the mill can be used as a source of additional income. We were asked to grind large amounts of peanuts and corn in the first few days. We're charging 50 cents per large can, and that income is being recorded for the community to see and then grow more trees.
