Growing Knowledge & Building Partnerships

Photo above: Partners' Farmer to Farmer Staff Benito Jasmin and Gerard Michel Joseph (Papy) unload medical supplies Dear Partners of the Americas Members, Friends, and Collaborators, Two weeks have passed since the tragic earthquake struck Haiti on January 12, 2010. With this letter, Partners of the Americas would like to share with you a “report from the field” describing the efforts taken by Partners’ program staff in Haiti to use donations for immediate relief to earthquake victims. Cap Haitien January 22, 2010 Thanks to everyone. Finally the banks are open and I [Benito Jasmin, Farmer to Farmer Country Coordinator] have started paying back the pharmacy that has been lending us medicine and supplies on credit. Sincerely we did a great job, supplying the two main hospitals in the North of Haiti, Hôpital Justinien and Hôpital Crudem de Milot, with medicine they need. We bought what they asked of us from the list they gave us. We have supplied the emergency center in H...

My mind can't seem to wrap around the idea of a title for this blog. How to summarize the turn of events since 4:53 Jan. 12th 2010. Hopefully writing will add some order to the confusion in my head. I am finally starting to feel much better. It is a surreal thing to be able to go from the devastation and in less than a day be able to use a phone, see a doctor within an hour, sleep indoors in a comfortable bed, eat when hungry, drive a car, get gas at will, hug your family..... It has been a busy week of interviews, developing plans to meet the requests of the people of Grand Boulage and Riviere Froide and fund raising. We already have over $10,000 on its way. $1000 got here before me even. Monday I will start transferring funds to Haiti and get the wheels literally rolling to provide sacks of cement so people will be able to start rebuilding their homes. It will be a challenge because we only have one truck lined up so far and it can only carry 400 sacks. The rains start in Mar...

Over the past several days many of our past Farmer to Farmer - Haiti volunteers as well as our institutional collaborators have shown their support for and solidarity with Haiti and the FTF Program, through calls and emails to our DC Office and directly to our field staff. Benito and our team there wishes to thank you all (read a short quote from him here ). Some have also chosen to give donations through Partners of the Americas and the FTF Program since they know and trust our organization and staff, and since they want to help those in Haiti with whom they have developed professional relationships and friendships. We would like to thank the New Jersey Beekeepers Association, the American Beekeeping Federation, the Friends of Haiti, and the New Jersey Chapter of Partners of the Americas for their fundraising efforts either through or in collaboration with Partners' Farmer to Farmer Program. Although Partners is not a first-responder humanitarian aid organization, our longstand...

The Farmer to Farmer Team is very happy to announce that as of tonight all 3 volunteers and 2 of their children are either home or on their way there as we speak. We would like to recognize all of the efforts made by our local field staff in making sure that this happened. Communications with them has hardly been possible these past days but we know they were there every step of the way. If you would like to view a news clip of the return of one volunteer, Mark Pasternak, and his two children, please click here .

Below is the link to a nice blog post belonging to Justin Hackworth, a photographer and Partners volunteer who recently traveled to the Dominican Republic and Haiti to photograph some of our agriculture projects and more. Between the words and the photos, it is worth a visit to Justin's blog post. His photos show the vibrant and resilient energy in Haiti. Click here to view: "Love Your Neighbor - Haiti"

Partners' Farmer to Farmer Team would like to thank all of you for your outcry of support and concern for Haiti and our volunteers, Chapter, and staff. We have confirmed that our staff and volunteers in country are safe and well. We are still waiting on news from our Haiti Chapter. Partners is preparing a brief statement and immediate donation information for our website, http://www.partners.net/ , as well as further communication related to relief efforts. Please stay tuned. Please click here if you would like to read a news article published by a local news agency in New Jersey. Partners' New Jersey Chapter is linked with Haiti.

This could be an way to put all those photos to work and make a few dollars for Makouti or another project in Haiti. Haiti is loaded with entrepreneurs. Go to the website and check it out. http://www.sevenfund.org/entrepreneur-image/index.php “I Am An Entrepreneur” Photo Competition Contest details Cambridge, MA – December 1, 2009 – The SEVEN Fund is pleased to announce the ‘I Am an Entrepreneur’ photography competition. This competition recognizes the outstanding use of photography to tell compelling stories of role model entrepreneurs from around the world. Anyone is welcome to participate in this competition. The competition will award twelve (12) prizes, one per month, over a period of one year. Each month, one finalist will be selected and will receive a prize of $100. The grand prize winner (selected from among the 12 finalist photographs) will receive $1,000 at the end of the year. Often, the imagery associated with developing nations captures the misery that accompanies pov...

Guyana's Kaieteur News Online published an article on December 12 which tells the story of a farmer from Hauraruni who is prospering, despite poor soil, with the help of a new hydroponics system and support from Farmer to Farmer volunteers and local organizations. The full article, "Highway farmer grows food where soil is no good", can be read here: http://www.kaieteurnewsonline.com/2009/12/12/highway-farmer-grows-food-where-soil-is-no-good/ In the spring of 2009 Farmer to Farmer volunteer Grady Sampson, from Clemson University, traveled to assist farmers with the hydroponics system. Grady was recruited by Partners of the Americas' Mississippi Chapter, which is partnered with the Guyana Chapter of Partners of the Americas.

Haiti is currently facing an outbreak of Teschen Disease in its pigs. This is like polio for pigs. It is NOT contagious to humans but humans can spread the disease. As a volunteer travelling in Haiti you do risk accidently bringing this disease back to the USA if you are not careful. Therefore it is important that you wash your hands well after handling animals or soil. I carry disinfectant wipes with me since soap and water are not always easy to find. I also clean and disinfect my shoes if I think I may have been in contact with a contaminated area. I always do this the night before I leave Haiti and again when I get home. All my travel clothes go straight into the washing machine. I am not telling you this to discourage you or to make you paranoid. As a veterinarian working with FTF in Haiti for 3 years, I have my hands literally in lots of diseases. I am also a farmer in California which makes me a high risk traveler and a potential threat to our food chain and my personal farm...

We are wrapping up a two week training process in the D.R. before heading off for a week in Haiti. Our assignment here has been to conduct training sessions in various subjects of organic greenhouse management. We worked with three different local NGO's, each of whom has projects in greenhouse cultivation of sweet bell peppers. The greenhouses are operated by groups of 3-10 growers who work cooperatively. Depending upon the organization, the groups are either comprised exclusively of women, or made up of a mixture of men and women. Each of the three different NGO's with whom we collaborated had its own position on organic practices, ranging from those who were interested in adopting some organic methods as a means of reducing production costs to those who were committed to natural resource conservation and see organic production as a means of achieving that goal. We introduced a range of subjects during our meetings with growers. Topics such as organic foliar feeding ap...