Donate an Ox: Help Improve Crop Productivity

The Lambi Fund of Haiti is improving crop productivity in Boula.  When I went to Boula, I saw many farmers working with their hoes turning the soil to prepare it for the planting season, coinciding with the rainy season.  It seemed like an endless journey to get their acreage tilled.  By the end of the day, the dent in the field was barely visible.

Boula sits in the third communal section of Tobek, in the heart of Southern Haiti. 26 men and 24 women had the vision to organize the Organization of the Peasants Of Boula (OPB) in 1975.  Today, they are 230 members strong (94 men and 104 women) taking charge to educate, support, and expand the growth of the community.  They identified their biggest problem as lack of access to ox-plows for the laborers of the land and this resulted in the low harvest thus diminishing the levelof revenue for the farming community.

The Lambi fund will work in partnership with the peasants of Boula to develop the ox-plow service that will serve all farmers in the region. We will provide 4 pairs of oxen and 3 plows. The project will also finance 50 farmers' loans to buy services to expand their cultivated surface to plant for the next harvest.  The organization will also plant 20,000 trees for the replenishment of the environment as part of Lambi's required reforestion aspect.  

In addition OPB will benefit from management training, nursery skills transfer and awareness of the environment.

Project cost :  $33,680.00

Lambi Fund works with a bottom up approach in partenrship with rural farmers in Haiti to assure continued crop productivity, thus supporting food security and reducing poverty in rural Haiti.

Links:

• Our programs at a glance!
• About the Lambi Fund of Haiti

The Lambi Fund continues to expand the capacity of rural farmers to bridge the gap by increasing production of Food as GWOFAMIL moves forward providing services to its mebership and the community to plow nearly double the field worked on previous year.  Our new Oxplow project is the Society for Agricultural development of Nip (SADN) that has 45 members (20 women and 25 men).  These farmers face the same major issue of low agricultural productivity and limited access to farming tools in their community.  They have  partnered with Lambi Fund to launch an ox-plow service for their members and the farmers in the community.

Lambi Fund is funding the purchase of six oxen and three plows and providing training on sustainable agriculture and organizational capacity building to the membership. This ox-plow service will provide members with access to oxen that can plow their fields affordably and efficiently. 

, Lambi Fund staff and 38 SADN members gathered in Lazil to launch the project. Now in full implementation, 25 members have received three days of training to upgrade their managerial capacity; 25 have participated in three days of agroforrestry training to enhance their skills in farming.

Completed activities thus far: 

• The service, complete with three oxen-pulled plows, is up and running.
• The organization has a treasury of 47,326 HTG  from service sales so far.
• Forty-five SADN members have received training in organizational management and accounting principles.
• SADN employs two people in the community as plow operators, and four members have received training in plow operation so far.
• A total of 72  farmers request for plow service has been delivered.  28 requests are wait listed.                           A major challenge is the current drought, the area has not seen rain since August and is facing major water access for planting.  Climatic changes has become the focus of uncertaininty in the planting season.  Managing the unexpected extreme is one that is most difficult and can become a precursor to food shortages in spite of all the efforts that farmers are making.  the need to develop silos to store food is a primary need for all the nation at this point.  

Links:

• http://www.lambifund.org