Sustainable Harvest International

Ellsworth, ME, USA

An Overview Of Our Solution

Natural systems produce food for all living organisms, yet humanity has dramatically disrupted natural systems. Agriculture is one of the main drivers of these profound alterations, in particular slash-and-burn and conventional, chemical-dependent farming to produce a very few crops. These dominant farming practices contribute to environmental instability including loss of biodiversity. Experience and research leads us to the conclusion that feeding the human population while preserving natural ecosystems requires a long-term, integrative approach that links ecosystem health, human health and societal health at a global scale. Sustainable Harvest International has for decades demonstrated the value of providing farmers with multi-year, technical assistance to produce more crops in equilibrium with natural systems that promote biodiversity.

Who is this solution impacting?

Community Type

Rural

Organization type

Nonprofit

Ecosystem (select all that apply)

Forests

Freshwater

Grasslands

Oceans/Coasts

Population impacted

2812 families (~11,208 people)

Size of agricultural area

17,715 acres

Production quantity

Rough estimates include 36 tons per acre per year of diversified staple plots including tubers and plantains; 800 -1,700 pounds per acre per year from agroforestry plots; and 4 - 12 tons per acre per year from vegetable gardens, depending on water supply.

People employed

30 people

Describe your solution

For nearly 20 years, Sustainable Harvest International has promoted agro-ecology practices through a multi-year training program that allows farmers to create productive, biodiverse farms that improve their standard. Agro-ecology maximizes the benefits of natural systems to produce abundant and diverse crops. Thousands of farmers who have participated in SHI’s extension program have found success through a variety of agro-ecological practices. Association of perennial and annual crops has been proven to increase productivity whilst increasing production resilience. The soil that is built up with organic material supports trillions of microorganisms, which in turn support healthy crops. SHI is part of the growing global call for a paradigm shift from monocultures to diversity, from chemical intensive agriculture to ecologically intensive, biodiversity intensive agriculture, from external inputs to internal inputs, from capital intensive production to low or zero cost production, from yield per acre to health and nutrition per acre and from food as a commodity to food as nourishment. By the time farmers graduate from our program, they are committed to preserving the natural environment and recreating healthy ecosystems on their farms.

Describe your implementation

Sustainable Harvest International's local staff work with each family in our program for 3 – 5 years, providing frequent trainings and technical assistance visits tailored to individual goals, preferences, and abilities. Our long-term commitment to program participants creates permanent results and empowers people to improve their lives and their environment. Participant families become committed to sustainable farming practices when these practices improve their lives. After approximately five years, most families are comfortable using the skills they learned and no longer need additional support. The graduates then act as mentors and help with workshops and train their neighbors, relatives and new SHI participants. All participants learn to restore and maintain the ecological health of their farmland. Field trainers work with participants on a variety of practices such as erosion control barriers made from rocks, living trees, pineapples or other materials. Cover crops, mulch and compost improve soil health, thus keeping crops healthy. Crop rotation prevents mineral depletion and pest infestation. A variety of integrated pest management techniques, including the production of natural pesticides, made from local plants and inexpensive household products, help participants avoid using dangerous and expensive chemical pesticides. Program participants are also encouraged to incorporate trees into their farms using a variety of agroforestry systems. One example is multistory cropping, which mimics the interdependence of a natural tropical rainforest. Long-lived, valuable hardwood trees make up the overstory that shades a story of fast-growing, nitrogen-fixing trees. The next story down can include fruit and nut trees that improve the family’s diet and income. The under story of shade-loving crops, such as coffee and cacao provide income. Multistory cropping also protects watersheds, provides wildlife habitat and stabilizes the climate.

External connections

Sustainable Harvest International partners with EARTH and other universities, Engineers with Borders, Peace Corps, Global Brigades, Bridges to Prosperity and other organizations to complement our program with research and community development projects. The fish ponds we help establish add to the supply of locally available fish, while our removal of toxic chemicals from farming practices, reforestation and forest preservation efforts protect wild stocks of fresh and saltwater fish from sedimentation and water pollution. Many of the trees being planted by program participants provide a sustainable source of lumber and our micro-finance projects put banking services within reach of those who could not otherwise access them. Small-holder farmers become empowered with their success and, before graduating from or program receive training in community leadership. Many have gone on to become advocates for additional development and conservation projects in their communities, including preservation of forested watersheds.

What is the environmental or ecological challenge you are targeting with your solution?

Farmers in the tropics use slash-and-burn farming and must return to previously burned land on a much shorter rotation than in the past. Given insufficient time to recuperate, the topsoil is completely lost after a few rotations and the land can no longer support crops or natural vegetation. Some farmers then start the slash-and-burn over again in areas of virgin forest that are often protected on paper but not from the reality of hungry families. The resulting deforestation leads to increased loss of biodiversity. Other farmers, often with encouragement from government or nonprofit programs, turn to chemicals as an alternative. Pesticides kill a variety of species, while chemical fertilizers kill microorganisms that create healthy soil. The loss of humus and microorganisms, makes it more difficult for both roots and rainwater to move through the soil leading to drought and flooding. As soil is washed away, the fertilizers and pesticides it takes with kill many aquatic species.

Describe the context in which you are operating

The widespread adoption of current organic practices has the potential to sequester 10Gt of CO2 (~20% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions). Agro-ecology practices are also an alternative to slash-and-burn farming that improve life for families, while also preserving tropical forests since slash-and-burn is a leading cause of tropical deforestation. Halting tropical deforestation would eliminate another 10% of greenhouse gas emissions and preserve over 50% of the earth’s biodiversity.

In the most comprehensive analysis of world agriculture to date, several U.N. agencies and the World Bank engaged more than 400 scientists and development experts from 80 countries over four years to produce the IAASTD. The conclusion? Our "reliance on resource-extractive industrial agriculture is risky and unsustainable, particularly in the face of worsening climate, energy, and water crises."

About 795 million people don’t have enough to eat. This number has fallen by 167 million since 2005, but progress slowed after 2008 when the food and economic crisis began because people were buying food rather than growing it. It is critical to consider that 75% of the world's hungry live in rural areas where they should be able to produce plenty of their own food. Yet they remain hungry because they do not know how to use productive, sustainable farming techniques to grow a diversity of nutritious foods. Since the 1900s, some 75 percent of crop diversity has been lost.

How did you impact natural resource use and greenhouse gas emissions?

Our program directly impacts biodiversity primarily in these four ways: 1) Facilitating the conservation of dozens of varieties of crops and reintroduction of many native varieties where they have become extinct. We continue to diversify through community seed selection and preservation. 2) Supporting program participants in the planting and care of 4,000,000 trees that host a diversity of fauna and flora. 3) Teaching farmers to avoid synthetic inputs thus preventing the deaths of many species that would otherwise be directly killed by these products or indirectly killed by contaminated prey or loss of prey species. 4) Intensifying production with sustainable cropping systems that allow communities and families to preserve forests they would normally chop down for agricultural production, our interventions decrease pressure for land use change one of the main drivers of biodiversity loss.

Language(s)

Spanish and English

Water

Watersheds are protected and reforested, while water sources are protected from siltation and chemical runoff cased by slash-and-burn or conventional farming practices.

Food Security/Nutrition

Program participants learn to produce a plentiful diversity of food that meets all of their nutritional needs. No longer dependent on scarce low-paying jobs that come and go, they achieve true food security.

Economic/Sustainable Development

Crop production beyond what is needed to feed a family becomes the basis for small farm-based business. Trainings during the latter phases of our program focus on micro-finance, small business development and community leadership.

Climate

Program participants adopt farming practices that sequester CO2 in the soil, while also conserving forests and putting more trees back on the land. Wood-conserving stoves we help families to build, save thousands more trees and eliminate more GHGs from the atmosphere.

Sustainability

Donations and grants currently fund our technical assistance program, but once families graduate, they can continue as self-sufficient, environmental stewards for generations without further assistance. They are also empowered to continue to innovate and seek additional opportunities to improve their farm production and conservation of biodiversity. Sustainable cropping systems free families from costly and risky external input technological packages. Diversified plots allow resilience and improve nutrition. Our farmers have stronger cropping systems and diversified livelihoods that are all more sustainable than previous practices. We are also looking into earned-income opportunities to better scale up our program.

Return on investment

How much did it cost to implement these activities? HOn average, it costs approximately $5,000 to put one family through our five-year program. Each of these families will plant and care for an average of 1,383 trees while in the program and more after graduating. They also each convert an average of 6.3 acres of degraded land to biodiverse, regenerative farm land. This works out to $794 per acre permanently transformed into a biodiverse, productive farm that includes 220 trees per acre and takes pressure off many more acres of natural forest.

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How could we successfully replicate this solution elsewhere?

Our program has been successfully replicated in seven regions of four countries through our own subsidiaries and independent affiliates. Further replication in additional regions and countries could be carried out in this manner or through other entities, including nonprofits, government agencies or businesses, with training and materials from our program. In either case, starting work in a new region or country would require approximately $100,000 per year for at least three years to make the effort worthwhile. This would allow for starting work with 50 -- 75 families. An additional $50,000 of funding could approximately double the reach of the work based on the established infrastructure and through economies of scale.

YouTube URL

Deep Roots - a video about Sustainable Harvest International

Overview