Agronomist Nerva Gives A Seminar

Four hundred youth assembled today for a nursery seminar in Les Cayes. One of the main topics was increasing the volume of trees that provide the best foods for Haiti. Here, Agronomist Nerva is giving a lecture on Breadfruit trees while our team gives out konparets. The Haiti Tree Project plans to start a konparet production facility in our nursery locality soon.

Here you see a Komparet, a kind of dry sweet bread, that is being produced in Jeremie and we hope to produce it in Saint Louis de Sud. Our team spent the day exploring everything that is needed to produce this product from the seedlings to the ingredients.

Konparet Breadfruit Factory Visit

Today, six team members traveled to a breadfruit konparet factory in Jeremie, Haiti. Our team has been chiefly grinding breadfruit into flour, but thanks to the seminar, they'll learn to make more marketable products from the breadfruits we grow.

Agronomist Pierre Moise has been growing his breadfruit business for 10 years. And now thanks to the support of Trees That Feed, our team can start growing our own.

Here you see a konparet, a kind of dry sweet bread, that is being produced in Jeremie. Once our team returns to our Saint Louis de Sud, they’ll be able to teach the rest of the nursery team everything they’ve learned from how to produce this Konparet from the seedlings to the ingredients.

Breadfruit tends to be either overabundant at certain times of the year or hard to find most of the year. When it is in season, a lot of the fruit either falls to the ground and rots, or it's fed to livestock.

After you shred the ripe breadfruit, you can place it in the sun to dry. But during the rainy season, this method doesn’t work so you’d need a dehydrator like the one below. The pieces of breadfruit are on screens and hot air from the solar oven wings, push up through the center of the dehydrator like a fan and dries out the pieces. We hope to build one of these in Saint Louis one day.

At the konparet factory, our team was able to see how a fruit dehydrator works. Think about all of the dried fruits you purchase at stores; if we can purchase a dehydrator for our nursery, we'll be able to make nutritious products year-round with all of the fruit we grow.

The Dalmarie Tree

The Dalmarie tree is native to the region, so it naturally grows here, which is excellent. It’s sturdy against strong winds, and animals don’t eat it, making it a perfect tree to spread across deforested mountainsides. In fact, it doesn’t need much watering to grow and survive, and when it rains, the roots help filter water down into the underground aquifers that feed the nearby freshwater springs that people depend on for drinking water. This year we will plant them as the first layer of forest to shade and protect the future plantings of many other more fragile tree species.

We'll keep you updated as they grow!

Open For Services

The sign reads: Here we grind breadfruit, peanuts, toasted corn, and cacao.

Whenever someone is available to run the mill, our nursery team places this sign outside for anyone who is in need of a mill. Our nursery caretaker, Rosnie is currently in training to manage the mill when Enel runs errands. We don’t charge for grinding breadfruit or cacao because we want to encourage the protection and growth of these high-value trees. But any other product costs 50 cents per ground mamit. The extra income will support our nursery team and the costs to keep supplies in stock.

Mahogany Seeds

The Mahogany tree may be the most valuable forest tree for Haiti. It's indigenous. It grows easily at most elevations, and goats avoid eating it. The high value of mahogany wood in furniture production also makes it a popular tree to plant and care for as it grows. Our first step is getting enough seeds to start outgrowing the number of trees being cut down. Unfortunately, in our region, so many mahogany trees have been cut down that It took us weeks to find this bunch of seeds.

Even though they're hard to find, we're determined to increase the mahogany tree population in our region. So, using our motorcycle and megaphone, a team member will occasionally ride through villages asking for any mahogany seeds anyone has found. We're excited to get this project started and are looking to fill several thousand seedling bags. Wish us luck!

Water Shortage

A few weeks ago, a boulder rolled down the mountainside and crashed into the water pipe that carries water from the mainspring to several villages and our nursery. We donated a small amount to support the purchase of new piping, and it should be repaired very soon.

In situations like this, we're incredibly thankful to everyone who supported last year's motorcycle fundraiser. The motorcycle has another job now, sending workers to collect water from the spring for the 10,000 seedlings we're actively growing.

Fresh Cacao Seeds

The ripe cacao fruit must be torn open and the seeds need to be dug out immediately before planting. If the seeds become too dry, they won’t sprout. Most of the ripe cacao that falls to the ground is perfect for collecting seeds to plant but we are competing with mice and insects who often get to them first.

Today, we sent a team member out to a few villages to ask for a few ripe fruits that had good seeds. We're excited to get more cacao seeds planted and turned into seedlings.

One Mamit of Breadfruit Flour

Now that we are making breadfruit flour we need to start packaging it by the pound. Today, Enel will take this “mamit” of flour to a scale in town and see how much it weighs so we can start packaging it by the pound.

Planting More Cacao

In a recent newsletter, we showed how valuable cacao is. Here, we're planting cacao seeds to start the communities investment in a cash crop with a high return. These seeds will be ready for planting in early April.

Cashew Trees Growing

Our cashew trees are growing fast! We're excited to have them ready for planting for late March.