Dreaming of land and oil palms.

In two weeks we will celebrate 5 years of living here in Fauche. Cory started planting trees and plants as soon as he considered our moving here, months before we actually moved North.

Now in almost every available spot with soil and good light a tree is growing. All except some locations too close to the school or church where group activities need open space.

So now where to plant. My very generous husband continues to give away trees throughout Haiti.

The bare hillside to the North of our house looks like an ideal place for him to plant. He would like to get permission from an owner to plant a demonstration garden and trees up on this hillside currently used for pasture.

It would be high enough for folks to notice from the road and see what a difference planting trees can make rather than root crops that lead to soil erosion or overgrazed pasture, both of which lead to severe soil erosion with our 100+ inches of rain each year.

He would be able to keep an eye on the field from our house. And it would not be a far hike to visit and work in the field.

To start would probably be high quality cut-and-carry pasture plants like elephant grass, mulberry and tree marigold.

Fruit, bamboo and lumber trees can also be planted for longer term production. It seems like sugar cane would produce in sunny locations and would hold the soil.


 Oil palm would be a great crop to conserve hillsides if the local people can be convinced of the health benefits of red palm oil (very high levels of carotene and vitamin E).

 The palms are very well adapted to the local climate and yield comparable to plantation trees but many of the palms are being cut down because people think it will cause "cholesterol".

In the past all the local people knew how to process palm oil but harvesting old tall trees is dangerous since they climb the tree to harvest.

 So the practice is dying out in our area and the red palm oil sells cheaper than imported cooking oil, including imported palm oil that has been industrially clarified by destroying most of the vitamins.

Part of encouraging oil palm gardening would be getting proper harvest saws attached to poles to allow harvest from the ground.

Please join us in praying for this potential project.