Community Empowerment

Bassin-Zim, is a dry zone in the central Plateau of Haïti, where farmers-planters do not have (easy) access to water to irigate their land. As such, agriculture and reliable Harvest have proven very difficult. Nonetheless, the majority of the population is devoted to agriculture in order to support themselves. It is their main source of income and employment for farmers. The development of commercial farming has not progressed enough due to those major constraints. The main constraints are : Reliable access to seeds due to high costs and access to irrigation water. The parish priest, conscious of this situation, sought to provide the community with a man made lake with the capacity to anchor more than 25 hectares of land.

The agriculture project was justified by the urgent need to install water pumps and introduce new crops into the community. This project can help minimize poverty and malnutrition which threathens the entire community.  Fruits and Vegetable farming will be the main activity of the community so that families can consume a variety of vegetables and fruits and sell their excess crops to the local markets.

The specific objectives are

  • Set up an agricultural teaching-demonstration plot to help beneficiaries to better understand the development of market gardening crops

  • Strengthen the technical and economic capacity of the farmers via training sessions

  • Improve sustainability and crop yields with the introduction of crop rotation

  • Introduce and develop market gardening, such as: cabbage, tomato, eggplant, sweet pepper and okra

Intensification of vegetable crops

The project provides training and technical assistance to farmers in the Bassin-Zim community, comprising a total of 125 families. Cabbage, tomato, okra, pepper, chilli, eggplant are popular examples among those farming families. The assistance provided consists in the procurement and supply of seeds and agricultural tools. The technical-training support is offered on the church grounds at a demonstration garden that is set-up in the community along.