Vegetable seeds: better nutrition and extra income in Haiti!

Shortly after the devastating Haiti earthquake in January 2010, CWS staff were driving into Port-au-Prince. They noticed families who had been displaced by the earthquake camped in informal settlements by the side of the road. After spending several hours talking to the families and assessing the situation, a new program was born. Since the quake, CWS and ACT Alliance partner SSID have been helping these families get back on their feet. This has meant partnering with families to build their new homes as well as programs to make food and water more accessible.

As part of this program, vegetable seeds were distributed in the second half of 2016 to 49 farmers in the region, and 58 farmers received technical assistance from an agronomist. Ilène Leonard is one of the farmers who received vegetable seeds. She is the mother of six children and lives in Balan, which is part of Ganthier.

In her words, “I am used to having a kitchen garden, even before this program started in Balan, but I have made it bigger now and I plant new things that I didn’t use to plant. I plant spinach, peppers, oregano, papaya and pigeon peas.”

Ilène participated in CWS-supported training sessions, where she learned some new ways to plant her vegetables or get higher yields. For example, she now uses tires to plant papaya, which is an excellent way to use a small space for vegetable production.

Her expanded vegetable garden means food for the family and a bit of extra income from selling the vegetables. She tells us, “I plant vegetables in the yard of my house so that I can get food to eat and to feed my children and also to sell a part to make some money to pay for school fees, uniforms, etc. What I like in this small garden is that it is a pot that I can tap daily; it helps me a lot. Thanks to this garden, if I need to buy food in the store on credit to give the children, I can get it on credit because everybody sees I have a garden that will provide me with some money.”

Ilène also shares the bounty from her garden with neighbors, and she told us that she hopes that more families will start gardens so they can also have more vegetables.