By Dady Chery, Haiti Chery. Long before the word sustainable became fashionable, before Henry David Thoreau noted that “A man is rich in proportion to the number of things he can afford to let alone,” there was Haiti.
Continue reading →By Staff, Haiti Grassroots Watch. Part 6 of 7. The same week over 300 agricultural plots in Caracol, Haiti, were unexpectedly destroyed, the Haitian government signed an agreement with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, IDB, and Korean textile giant Sae-A Trading to convert the lands into an industrial park. This park will dump its wastes into a bay with extensive coraf reefs and one of the country’s last mangrove forests. (English | French)
By Staff, Haiti Grassroots Watch. Part 5 of 7. Are low-wage, low-skilled assembly industries in Haiti really a “stepping stone” to more complex industrial development? In the Mexican maquiladora boom areas, the water table is dropping by 1 to 1.5 meters every year due to intensive use of water; the blue dye run-off from jeans pollutes rivers and irrigation ditches; 67% of homes have dirt floors, and 52% of streets are unpaved. (English | French)
Continue reading →By Julio Godoy, IPS | Tierramérica. Common cranes normally migrated in September from their spring and summer habitat in Europe to spend the autumn and winter in northern Africa. But climate change is altering their natural migratory patterns, sparking conflicts between farmers and environmentalists. (English | Spanish)
Continue reading →By Marga Ortigas, Al Jazeera | You Tube | Asian Journal of Agriculture and Development. In integrated rice-duck farming, farmers forgo pesticides or fertilizers; ducks fertilize the fields, keep the water in the paddies fresh, and they remove weeds and other pests that might damage the crops.
Continue reading →By James Brownsell, Al Jazeera | Haiti Chery. As Israeli civil and military forces uproot olive trees and replace them with eucalyptus on 12 km along the edge of the Gaza Strip, Palestinians gardeners and their supporters plant many more olive trees.
Continue reading →By Jose Pavero and others, In: Source Book of Alternative Technologies for Freshwater Augmentation in Latin America and the Caribbean. Rainwater harvesting is not used in Haiti, but over half a million people in the Caribbean get at least some of their water by this method. Rain-catchment systems are easy to build and operate and cost little to run.
Continue reading →By Kristian Beadle, Miller-McCune. Kristian Beadle steps off a rickety bus in southern Mexico and finds a traditional coffee-growing culture that admirably suits modern sustainability efforts.
Continue reading →By Sylvestre Fils Dorcilus, Alter Presse. “It’s the most fertile area we have at Caracol…. It’s inconceivable and unacceptable that the government could choose this part of the land to set up an industrial park.” – Resident Renel Pierre (English | French)
Continue reading →By Staff Writers, SPX via Seed Daily. As natural vegetation and forests are cleared for agriculture and other types of development, the benefits that trees provide are best sustained by integrating them into agriculturally productive landscapes.
Continue reading →By Tim Johnson, McClatchy. Mexico’s native varieties of corn are under peril from economics and genetic contamination, potentially depriving humans of a crucial resource.
Continue reading →By Gotson Pierre, Francesca Theosmy and Ronald Colbert, AlterPresse | Commentary and translation by Dady Chery, Haiti Chery. Since the 1980s, Haiti’s production of its own food has dropped from over 80 Percent to less than 40 percent. The latest blow was the was the introduction of cholera into the Artibonite River during the rice harvest. (English | French)
Continue reading →By Dady Chery, Haiti Chery. A wealthy man in the Ganthier area is accused of expropriating over 9,000 acres of land coveted by various NGOs and selling the majority of this land to high-level members of the police force, former ministers, a former representative of Ganthier in Haiti’s parliament, and the wife of the current Minister.
Continue reading →By Jill Richardson Alternet A common model in Cuba is the “organipónico,” an urban farm made up of long, narrow raised beds filled with a mix of soil and composted manure or another organic material. Often, the beds are intercropped, … Continue reading →
