"How a Tree is Helping Haiti: The JP Cashew Story" is a video courtesy of Partner For People & Place/JP illustrating how significant cashew trees are to Haiti!
JP's agroforestry approach is to use trees to protect soil from erosion, conserve soil moisture, contribute to soil fertility (fix nitrogen), and realistically provide a source for the fuel that families need for cooking, wood for construction and furniture, and tree crops like cashew for cash crops.
The seeds of a plant called "Jatrofa" produce oil, which can be used for products like soap and lotion. The origins of Jatrofa Projenou were with this special plant and hence its namesake. But JP has grown to be far more than just about the Jatrofa plant! This program is now centered on 4 objectives, the first two being Protecting Land and Farming Better. JP has its own tree nursery and partners with landowners to plant and care for trees and other plants. This helps fulfill the objectives of protecting the land, which has suffered terribly from deforestation and erosion, and also of farming better!
JP helps farmers earn more by focusing on cash crops and acquiring the means for value-added processing and access to markets. Pictured here is JP’s store, where various finished products are sold. Frequently earning more can best be accomplished by pooling resources and working together - for example, communities own cassava mills and bakeries built by JP. (Cassava is a tuber that can be ground up and made into flour and then baked into flatbread.) What you see here is a giant flatbread baking!
JP's work is critical in growing trees in its nursery and enabling local families living on the land to plant them - offsetting carbon to limit the rising sea level, increase in hurricanes, and increase in droughts - all endured by our brothers and sisters in Haiti.
$15 is how much it costs to plant 10 trees and make a difference in reducing carbon and reforesting Haiti. Interested in helping heal the land in Haiti? Click here to donate today: https://tinyurl.com/43rfxrc9