SUSTAINABLE AGRICULTURE OF LOUISVILLE (SAL)Launches 2nd Training Program for Aspiring Farmers, Urban Agriculturalists and Food Justice Advocates
Still accepting applications (as of March 18, 2011) Seminars begin in March 21!!
104 Forest Court, Louisville, KY 40206 Toward a joyous, diverse and sustainable community of well-nourished people and well-compensated farmers and food workers…
Start Date is March, 2011
Sustainable Agriculture of Louisville (SAL), having completed its 8th season of education, advocacy, consultation and accompaniment of youth and aspiring farmers in the summer of 2010, and graduated its first class of Aspiring Farmers in October 2010 is now planning and recruiting for a second training course for aspiring farmers to take place from March through November, 2011.
Curriculum Outline: March-May, with weekly follow up sessions over Summer, One 90-120 minute evening session per week (times negotiated with trainees).
-The Decision to Farm, Process, Market, Community Organize: Refining the Vision, Transition or Leap? Means of Production: Land, Water, Tools. Location, housing, income and lifestyle.
-Soil Fertility Stewardship: Theory and Practice
-Crops, Animals and Fish: Integrated Agricultural or Aquaponic Models: From worms to carp to cattle, by way of honey bees.
-Direct Marketing Strategies: Solidarity Economy mechanisms, CSAs, Farmers Markets, Niche Markets, Value Added, Food Procurement Contracting, Human Relations and Communications
-Business Planning basics
-Political economy, agriculture and democracy. Food sovereignty.
Practicum Opportunities: May-October. These mini-apprenticeships, mentorships and experiential leaning opportunities constitute 50% or more of the training experience. Participant-trainees will choose from a variety of experiential work placements with area farmers, urban agriculturalists, food processors, marketers, community organizations.
Accompaniment Program: This program includes a medium-term (2 years or more) commitment to accompany participant-trainees in taking steps to acquire access to the means of production, a process that will be adapted to the unique needs and particular circumstances of each participant-trainee.
Cost: Sliding Scale Fee*. $250 fee. *Scholarships available pending fund-raising.
Time commitment: On average 3-10** hours per week, **varies with practicums.
104 Forest Court, Louisville, KY 40206 Toward a joyous, diverse and sustainable community of well-nourished people and well-compensated farmers and food workers…
For more information, to register to be among SAL’s first class of aspiring farmer trainee-participants, to donate or to volunteer, please contact SAL coordinator, Stephen Bartlett sbartlett@ag-missions.org (502) 896 9171), or talk with active member Amanda Fuller, abfuller@gmail.com (502) 452 6770
We have nothing to lose but our dependency on an unjust and harmful food system. And so much delicious shared life with the land to gain!!
Thursday, March 17, 2011
Wednesday, March 16, 2011
Haiti Soliarity Delegation Invite
AGRICULTURAL MISSIONS HAITI DELEGATION : WE SHALL REAP AS WE SOW
Rural Haiti ecumenical solidarity delegation: Spend time getting to know the reality of Haitian agriculture at close range! And what solidarity means in the face of such challenges!
When: April 21 (Maundy Thursday) through April 29
Where: In two or three provinces including the South, Artibonite, Central Plateau, with in-depth overnight
visits in two regions.
Why: To build relationships for long-term solidarity. To support food sovereignty struggles in both Haiti and where you live.
Cost: $600 in-country costs (sliding scale possible, depending on fund-raising)
plus airfare. Substantial scholarships are possible.
Deposit deadline: $200 sent to Ag Missions, 475 Riverside Drive, Suite 725, New York, NY 10115
c/o Doris Rivera, checks made out to AMI, or Agricultural Missions, by April 6. (exceptions are possible but must be negotiated).
Confirmation due: April 6
Minimum number of participants: 6
Maximum number of participants: 12
Application: Send your contact information and explain what your commitment is to solidarity work with Haitian farmers, and explain any limitations you might have. Conditions will be rustic at times, so people with health problems should consult with us. Provide background on previous travel and global south living and working experience, if any. Languages spoken, etc... Send this info to: Stephen Bartlett, sbartlett@ag-missions.org or call 502 896 9171 after March 11 for an in-depth interview.
Spark!: Ag Missions staffer Stephen Bartlett, along with Presbyterian Church USA Hunger Program director Ruth Farrell just completed an 8 day tour of rural communities in four regions of Haiti, among family farmers, men and women, who participated in the FONDAMA sponsored seeds and tools programs for farmers impacted by the Jan 12 earthquake (in most cases because they are now supporting large numbers of displaced persons). Thousands of family farmers are energized and motivated to feed themselves and their communities, and are doing so with varying degrees of success according to weather and/or access to irrigation and fertile soil. What does not vary is the collective nature of this effort through longstanding peasant organizations connected in important ways in a common effort. Solidarity and support from abroad is vital to this effort. Come and be a part of making history for food sovereignty with our Haitian partners!! The crops from the first seed distribution are almost all in, and a new agricultural cycle will be just beginning during our visits. There will be ample opportunities to learn an agrarian skills and outlook from our Haitian sisters and brothers!!
Delegation organized by Ag Missions, with co-sponsorships of the Presbyterian Church USA Hunger Program and Other Worlds.
Rural Haiti ecumenical solidarity delegation: Spend time getting to know the reality of Haitian agriculture at close range! And what solidarity means in the face of such challenges!
When: April 21 (Maundy Thursday) through April 29
Where: In two or three provinces including the South, Artibonite, Central Plateau, with in-depth overnight
visits in two regions.
Why: To build relationships for long-term solidarity. To support food sovereignty struggles in both Haiti and where you live.
Cost: $600 in-country costs (sliding scale possible, depending on fund-raising)
plus airfare. Substantial scholarships are possible.
Deposit deadline: $200 sent to Ag Missions, 475 Riverside Drive, Suite 725, New York, NY 10115
c/o Doris Rivera, checks made out to AMI, or Agricultural Missions, by April 6. (exceptions are possible but must be negotiated).
Confirmation due: April 6
Minimum number of participants: 6
Maximum number of participants: 12
Application: Send your contact information and explain what your commitment is to solidarity work with Haitian farmers, and explain any limitations you might have. Conditions will be rustic at times, so people with health problems should consult with us. Provide background on previous travel and global south living and working experience, if any. Languages spoken, etc... Send this info to: Stephen Bartlett, sbartlett@ag-missions.org or call 502 896 9171 after March 11 for an in-depth interview.
Spark!: Ag Missions staffer Stephen Bartlett, along with Presbyterian Church USA Hunger Program director Ruth Farrell just completed an 8 day tour of rural communities in four regions of Haiti, among family farmers, men and women, who participated in the FONDAMA sponsored seeds and tools programs for farmers impacted by the Jan 12 earthquake (in most cases because they are now supporting large numbers of displaced persons). Thousands of family farmers are energized and motivated to feed themselves and their communities, and are doing so with varying degrees of success according to weather and/or access to irrigation and fertile soil. What does not vary is the collective nature of this effort through longstanding peasant organizations connected in important ways in a common effort. Solidarity and support from abroad is vital to this effort. Come and be a part of making history for food sovereignty with our Haitian partners!! The crops from the first seed distribution are almost all in, and a new agricultural cycle will be just beginning during our visits. There will be ample opportunities to learn an agrarian skills and outlook from our Haitian sisters and brothers!!
Delegation organized by Ag Missions, with co-sponsorships of the Presbyterian Church USA Hunger Program and Other Worlds.
Haiti Seed Solidarity Post Earthquake
Life saving seeds and tools reached Haitian farmers at critical juncture; Haitian rural partner organizations saved lives, boosted by nation-wide seed and tool program. Solidarity resources were key.
By Stephen Bartlett of Agricultural Missions. He was accompanied in a tour of rural Haitian organizations Feb 28-March 4 by the Director of the Hunger Program of the Presbyterian Church USA, Ruth Farrell.
Standing up to testify in rural Haitian hamlets with names like Bayonnais, la Victoire, Acul du Nord, Ennery, Renquitte, Milot, Colladere, Papay, peasant after peasant stood to speak, driving home the point far better than any polished spreadsheet could have. (We already had the spread sheets in hand, that showed 86 tons of locally purchased seed distributed along with 15,000 machetes and hoes among thousands of farmer families in 10 provinces of Haiti!) The seeds and tools program was exactly what was needed in their lives in the months following the catastrophic earthquake. Peasants of every age, both women and men, proudly expressed their gratitude for empowering them to shoulder their responsibilities and provide relief to the rural hungry and to the large number of displaced persons who they now feed and house. (Note: a large proportion of those displaced from Port-au-Prince have chosen to remain in the countryside, testimony perhaps to the success of the support for these vital programs.) In fact, for most, the peas, beans, corn, rice, peanuts, and sorghum seeds and the extra tools were all that stood between their loved ones, and a grinding hunger and mortifying defeat.
The seeds allowed them to act, in the face of great need and suffering. It allowed them to shoulder their responsibilities to produce and nourish, and not to succumb to the overwhelming circumstances with despair, despite an extremely challenging context. In addition, the seed and tool program was a stimulus to movement building and increased unity, as FONDAMA member organizations reached out at local and regional levels to include community organizations of all kinds, women´s groups, credit cooperatives, un-affiliated farmers groups, even considered ´rivals´ among the beneficiaries of the seed and tool purchases. The main criteria for disbursement of seeds and tools was that recipients be farmers with land access who were feeding victims of the earthquake of January 12, 2010.
Funding for the purchase of local Haitian seeds and tools and for training tinsmiths to produce metallic silos for community seed banks as part of a national strategic plan was provided by Agricultural Missions, the Presbyterian Hunger Program (PHP), and the Presbyterian Disaster Assistance program. The PHP and Ag Missions Haiti partner FONDAMA administered the purchase and distribution of the seeds and tools across 10 departments of Haiti, and undertook the training of 60 tinsmiths for production of silos for community seedbanks (100 silos have been produced thus far.).
Arriving in a cloud of dry-season dust in backcountry Artibonite, Leogane, the North or Central Plateau, without fail groups of up to 65 rural individuals were gathered to welcome our delegation of two, and to express their gratitude for not forgetting them in their supreme moment of need. They also took the opportunity to ask for continued accompaniment as they move to creating or consolidating community seed banks, and to expand further their staple food production. The depletion of their seed stocks and any saved cash that resulted from the arrival of multitudes of displaced victims of devastated Port-au-Prince, put the Haitian farmers in a double bind. Already living on the margins economically, the new reality for the Haitian peasantry of having to feed and shelter more than half a million destitute and shell-shocked persons threatened to overwhelm them.
A peasant by the name of Christophe from the well-watered north put it this way. “When the quake destroyed Port-au-Prince in 90 seconds of horror last January, some 18,000 victims flooded the communities surrounding Acul du Nord/St. Michel. ¨Many of us had to do search and rescue trips to the capital, searching, sometimes, in vain, for our loved ones and their neighbors. Everyone in Haiti was touched. As so many displaced relatives and even unknown persons flooded our communities, we had to dig deep, literally to the bottom of the barrel, to try to feed and shelter them all. Our hospitals were overflowing, our churches converted into shelters, our humble houses filled to overflowing. The January and February planting season passed us by. April-May when it was time to plant again, we were barely back on our feed and we hadn´t a single seed on hand to sow, or money to buy seed. That is when 20 pounds of black bean seed, 12 pounds of corn, 20 pounds of peanut seed and a new hoe and machete came to us, thanks to your organizations. We couldn´t have gotten that seed any other way. We were broke. We want to thank you for helping make that happen, for my family and for so many other families. It wasn´t as much as we could have planted, but it made a crop! We hope you will continue to keep Haitian farmers in your hearts and minds. Many others still need seeds and tools. And we need grain silos so our organizations will never be without planting seed again.¨
Unwittingly, in what was aimed to be a ¨well-timed¨ gesture in terms of international public relations, an infamous transnational corporatiion provided a memorable, menacing and TRULY TIMELY object lesson to Haitian farmers (and to the world). The gesture of Monsanto corporation threatened the seed autonomy still remaining among rural communities in Haiti, threatening what remained of Haitian´s well-adapted homegrown crop seeds. On May 13 Monsanto corporation announced that it was entering the Haitian market for the first time, in the form of a ¨gift¨to the Haitian people, of 460 tons of imported hybrid seed, at the explicit invitation of USAID, and its local WINNER organization run by a former Duvalierist, that would be facilitating distribution. Organized Haitian farmers were indignant and outraged. Leaders of FONDAMA member organizations and Via Campesina Haiti declared this a mortal¨and ¨poisoned¨gift. In fact, most of the seeds were coated with a pesticide banned in the U.S., despite the practice of hand-sowing of seed among Haitian subsistence farmers. And while Monsanto claimed the seeds were not transgenics (GMOs), they were hybrids, which cannot be replanted after the first harvest, thus setting up a dependency on the company once local seed stocks have expired.
The farmer organization known as the MPP (Mouvement Paysan de Papay) with rural allies and members of Via Campesina Haiti called for a national march on June 4 to protest this aggressive maneuver by Monsanto, known to every member worldwide of Via Campesina as a predatory enemy of family farmers and peasants. Within weeks, a national march was organized and involved over 15,000 peasants who marched from Papay to Hinche in Central Plateau department (province). 200 representatives of peasant organizations from all across Haiti traveled to remote Papay, as did many international solidarity folk. Our own Agricultural Missions sent retired US farmer Sam Smith to bear witness. We also provided $3,000 in funds for the materials purchased to enliven the protest, straw hats, banners, placards, etc...The bulk of the marchers arrived on foot and on motorcycles and mules, from a radius of several hours walking distance from Papay.
A national Haitian television channel (channel 11) as well as a phalanx of journalists, including an Al-Jazeera reporter stationed in Port-au-Prince, turned up in rural Papay. News of the vibrant mass march and the symbolic burning of a sack full of the eerily pinkish-coated seeds circulated the planet, and penetrated into the hearts and minds of Haitian farmers, for whom after the catastrophe, a lack of native seed could have resulted in their literally becoming ¨undone.¨ Seeds, people realized with new fervor, were strategic. Local control of seeds was essential. The ancestral DNA in staple crop seeds represented nothing less than freedom from subjugation and eventual bankruptcy and failure as farmers.
Haitian farmers´enthusiasm and commitment to the seed program launched by the coalition called FONDAMA (Hand in Hand Foundation) surprised even their optimistic leaders. Many had questioned whether farmer recipients of seed would return seeds from their subsequent harvests, to replenish the stocks so that others in need could also get high quality local seed. Their doubts were proven wrong by the positive response, and tons and tons of harvested seeds were returned from the first crops to be distributed again, or stored until the next rainy season, and some of the crops are still drying in the fields up north. Now the work of the newly-trained tinsmiths becomes critical, to produce the metallic silos where seed can be safely and securely stored, protected from insects and rats, sealed from above by layers of neem leaves and wild chilis, or mixed with wood ash. Farmers are people of hope at each new planting season, and Haitian farmers hopes to produce their way out of their poverty is rising like a tide.
Those of us who helped get the word out to donors in the U.S. and Canada-- and those donors included many individuals as well as church program agencies and solidarity NGOs-- should be proud of providing the kind of support that empowers and leads to long-term well-being and sustainability in the long uphill climb of the Haitian peasantry to restore and revitalize Haitian agriculture. We who got to tour the rural communities shouldering their burdens with courage, have no doubt whatsoever that Haiti can feed itself, if given half a chance and an equitable share of resources for reconstruction. We aim to continue to build the kind of international solidarity that must fill the gap left by the failure, corruption and dependency of the government of Haiti and of the international governments under the UN and MINUSTAH who so far have done little or nothing to allow for that to change. Haiti is faced by a choice between solidarity or calamity! What we ask of everyone who reads this: be part of blessed solidarity!!
By Stephen Bartlett of Agricultural Missions. He was accompanied in a tour of rural Haitian organizations Feb 28-March 4 by the Director of the Hunger Program of the Presbyterian Church USA, Ruth Farrell.
Standing up to testify in rural Haitian hamlets with names like Bayonnais, la Victoire, Acul du Nord, Ennery, Renquitte, Milot, Colladere, Papay, peasant after peasant stood to speak, driving home the point far better than any polished spreadsheet could have. (We already had the spread sheets in hand, that showed 86 tons of locally purchased seed distributed along with 15,000 machetes and hoes among thousands of farmer families in 10 provinces of Haiti!) The seeds and tools program was exactly what was needed in their lives in the months following the catastrophic earthquake. Peasants of every age, both women and men, proudly expressed their gratitude for empowering them to shoulder their responsibilities and provide relief to the rural hungry and to the large number of displaced persons who they now feed and house. (Note: a large proportion of those displaced from Port-au-Prince have chosen to remain in the countryside, testimony perhaps to the success of the support for these vital programs.) In fact, for most, the peas, beans, corn, rice, peanuts, and sorghum seeds and the extra tools were all that stood between their loved ones, and a grinding hunger and mortifying defeat.
The seeds allowed them to act, in the face of great need and suffering. It allowed them to shoulder their responsibilities to produce and nourish, and not to succumb to the overwhelming circumstances with despair, despite an extremely challenging context. In addition, the seed and tool program was a stimulus to movement building and increased unity, as FONDAMA member organizations reached out at local and regional levels to include community organizations of all kinds, women´s groups, credit cooperatives, un-affiliated farmers groups, even considered ´rivals´ among the beneficiaries of the seed and tool purchases. The main criteria for disbursement of seeds and tools was that recipients be farmers with land access who were feeding victims of the earthquake of January 12, 2010.
Funding for the purchase of local Haitian seeds and tools and for training tinsmiths to produce metallic silos for community seed banks as part of a national strategic plan was provided by Agricultural Missions, the Presbyterian Hunger Program (PHP), and the Presbyterian Disaster Assistance program. The PHP and Ag Missions Haiti partner FONDAMA administered the purchase and distribution of the seeds and tools across 10 departments of Haiti, and undertook the training of 60 tinsmiths for production of silos for community seedbanks (100 silos have been produced thus far.).
Arriving in a cloud of dry-season dust in backcountry Artibonite, Leogane, the North or Central Plateau, without fail groups of up to 65 rural individuals were gathered to welcome our delegation of two, and to express their gratitude for not forgetting them in their supreme moment of need. They also took the opportunity to ask for continued accompaniment as they move to creating or consolidating community seed banks, and to expand further their staple food production. The depletion of their seed stocks and any saved cash that resulted from the arrival of multitudes of displaced victims of devastated Port-au-Prince, put the Haitian farmers in a double bind. Already living on the margins economically, the new reality for the Haitian peasantry of having to feed and shelter more than half a million destitute and shell-shocked persons threatened to overwhelm them.
A peasant by the name of Christophe from the well-watered north put it this way. “When the quake destroyed Port-au-Prince in 90 seconds of horror last January, some 18,000 victims flooded the communities surrounding Acul du Nord/St. Michel. ¨Many of us had to do search and rescue trips to the capital, searching, sometimes, in vain, for our loved ones and their neighbors. Everyone in Haiti was touched. As so many displaced relatives and even unknown persons flooded our communities, we had to dig deep, literally to the bottom of the barrel, to try to feed and shelter them all. Our hospitals were overflowing, our churches converted into shelters, our humble houses filled to overflowing. The January and February planting season passed us by. April-May when it was time to plant again, we were barely back on our feed and we hadn´t a single seed on hand to sow, or money to buy seed. That is when 20 pounds of black bean seed, 12 pounds of corn, 20 pounds of peanut seed and a new hoe and machete came to us, thanks to your organizations. We couldn´t have gotten that seed any other way. We were broke. We want to thank you for helping make that happen, for my family and for so many other families. It wasn´t as much as we could have planted, but it made a crop! We hope you will continue to keep Haitian farmers in your hearts and minds. Many others still need seeds and tools. And we need grain silos so our organizations will never be without planting seed again.¨
Unwittingly, in what was aimed to be a ¨well-timed¨ gesture in terms of international public relations, an infamous transnational corporatiion provided a memorable, menacing and TRULY TIMELY object lesson to Haitian farmers (and to the world). The gesture of Monsanto corporation threatened the seed autonomy still remaining among rural communities in Haiti, threatening what remained of Haitian´s well-adapted homegrown crop seeds. On May 13 Monsanto corporation announced that it was entering the Haitian market for the first time, in the form of a ¨gift¨to the Haitian people, of 460 tons of imported hybrid seed, at the explicit invitation of USAID, and its local WINNER organization run by a former Duvalierist, that would be facilitating distribution. Organized Haitian farmers were indignant and outraged. Leaders of FONDAMA member organizations and Via Campesina Haiti declared this a mortal¨and ¨poisoned¨gift. In fact, most of the seeds were coated with a pesticide banned in the U.S., despite the practice of hand-sowing of seed among Haitian subsistence farmers. And while Monsanto claimed the seeds were not transgenics (GMOs), they were hybrids, which cannot be replanted after the first harvest, thus setting up a dependency on the company once local seed stocks have expired.
The farmer organization known as the MPP (Mouvement Paysan de Papay) with rural allies and members of Via Campesina Haiti called for a national march on June 4 to protest this aggressive maneuver by Monsanto, known to every member worldwide of Via Campesina as a predatory enemy of family farmers and peasants. Within weeks, a national march was organized and involved over 15,000 peasants who marched from Papay to Hinche in Central Plateau department (province). 200 representatives of peasant organizations from all across Haiti traveled to remote Papay, as did many international solidarity folk. Our own Agricultural Missions sent retired US farmer Sam Smith to bear witness. We also provided $3,000 in funds for the materials purchased to enliven the protest, straw hats, banners, placards, etc...The bulk of the marchers arrived on foot and on motorcycles and mules, from a radius of several hours walking distance from Papay.
A national Haitian television channel (channel 11) as well as a phalanx of journalists, including an Al-Jazeera reporter stationed in Port-au-Prince, turned up in rural Papay. News of the vibrant mass march and the symbolic burning of a sack full of the eerily pinkish-coated seeds circulated the planet, and penetrated into the hearts and minds of Haitian farmers, for whom after the catastrophe, a lack of native seed could have resulted in their literally becoming ¨undone.¨ Seeds, people realized with new fervor, were strategic. Local control of seeds was essential. The ancestral DNA in staple crop seeds represented nothing less than freedom from subjugation and eventual bankruptcy and failure as farmers.
Haitian farmers´enthusiasm and commitment to the seed program launched by the coalition called FONDAMA (Hand in Hand Foundation) surprised even their optimistic leaders. Many had questioned whether farmer recipients of seed would return seeds from their subsequent harvests, to replenish the stocks so that others in need could also get high quality local seed. Their doubts were proven wrong by the positive response, and tons and tons of harvested seeds were returned from the first crops to be distributed again, or stored until the next rainy season, and some of the crops are still drying in the fields up north. Now the work of the newly-trained tinsmiths becomes critical, to produce the metallic silos where seed can be safely and securely stored, protected from insects and rats, sealed from above by layers of neem leaves and wild chilis, or mixed with wood ash. Farmers are people of hope at each new planting season, and Haitian farmers hopes to produce their way out of their poverty is rising like a tide.
Those of us who helped get the word out to donors in the U.S. and Canada-- and those donors included many individuals as well as church program agencies and solidarity NGOs-- should be proud of providing the kind of support that empowers and leads to long-term well-being and sustainability in the long uphill climb of the Haitian peasantry to restore and revitalize Haitian agriculture. We who got to tour the rural communities shouldering their burdens with courage, have no doubt whatsoever that Haiti can feed itself, if given half a chance and an equitable share of resources for reconstruction. We aim to continue to build the kind of international solidarity that must fill the gap left by the failure, corruption and dependency of the government of Haiti and of the international governments under the UN and MINUSTAH who so far have done little or nothing to allow for that to change. Haiti is faced by a choice between solidarity or calamity! What we ask of everyone who reads this: be part of blessed solidarity!!
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