We have experienced some unexpected weather patterns in Gros Morne during the past few months, which matches issues we have faced in the past few years. Due to high winds and a lack of rain, farmers in many different areas of the Gros Morne region were not able to take advantage of the start of the regular spring planting season again this year. Small farmers are more vulnerable to these climatic changes because it is more difficult for them to shift to a different garden crop with a different growing season.
Many small farmers lost their plantain crops due to the climatic change, which was previously a source of revenue for them. This is why Grepen Center decided to create this plantain project with the support of our benefactors. This project maintains the following objectives:
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Make good quality plantain trees available to farmers at a reasonable price to enable them to replant their gardens
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Increase the production of plantains in Gros Morne
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Increase the resilience of small farmers and their capacity to respond to climate change
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Increase the harvests of small farmers by teaching them irrigation techniques that
will increase their garden yields -
Contribute to the self-financing of Grepen Center
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Enable Gros Morne to have a strong plantain crop available in the local market, as it did in previous years
Project Activities
We began the following activities at the end of November 2022 with the intention of responding to the objectives listed above on a fixed calendar. We have completed the following project activities:
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Held 6 sensibilization meetings in the 4 regions where plantain production was highest in previous years
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Held 1 meeting with the local representative of the Ministry of Agriculture to inform him of this activity
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Created a nursery for the young plantain trees
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Purchased and began to use tools and materials necessary to support the growth of plantain trees in the nursery
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Educated 97 farmers about the plantain program and why good planting methods are important
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In the first month, 3,000 plantain trees were available and growing in the nursery
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6 people were hired on a temporary basis for 2 to 3 weeks to assist with the set-up activities for the nursery
Plan for the next few months
We expect to support farmers to enable them to plant a lot of trees in May and June. We will have more than 30,000 trees ready for farmers to plant in stages by June. We will increase the number of formation sessions for farmers to twice per week. We also plan to make 2 visits to farmers’ fields per week to continue to give the farmers feedback and advice about how they can best care for their plantain trees and succeed with this activity.
A Note from Quixote Center on the Project:
Over the past several years, plantain production in Gros Morne has steadily decreased due to multiple factors, such as a recent hurricane. Plantain seedlings are difficult to source in Gros Morne, requiring travel as far away as near Port-au-Prince. As gang violence in Haiti continues to spread, the journey to secure plantain seedlings has become dangerous and cost-prohibitive.
Quixote Center is supporting the Grepen Center’s latest project, which aims to make plantains, a staple in Haitian food and an important cash crop, more sustainable and accessible for farmers to produce. Currently, our partners are cultivating plantain seedlings that farmers can purchase on an income-based sliding scale.
