Triple The Impact Of Your Giving

Posted on May 16, 2013 by Kim Nixon

Triple the impact of your giving this May to empower women in Nepal. Thanks to generous Heifer donors and a small group of local donors moved by our previous success in Nepal, your gift to our May Match will be tripled.

Photo by Russell Powell, courtesy of Heifer International

Heifer’s work in Nepal has led to dramatic transformation in the communities. Working with women who are often unable to overcome the caste system and gender discrimination, Heifer is a proven model to move families from subsistence to sustenance.

Vicki Clarke, a member of Heifer’s Philanthropy team, recently visited Nepal. She reflects on the large differences in the quality of life in areas where Heifer has just started to work and where Heifer has worked for years.

Triple the impact of your giving today to help women in Nepal lift themselves out of hunger and poverty.

Goats Mean Gainful Employment in Nepal

Posted on March 13, 2013 by Chelsey McNiel

Photo courtesy of Heifer International

Raghu and Kalpana are a young married couple in Nepal. Raghu worked in Malaysia, but after he attended Heifer’s 12 Cornerstones for Just and Sustainable Development training, the couple started a goat-breeding business in their own village. Area Vice President Mahendra Lohani shares their story.

Learn how you can help families in Nepal improve their lives.

Direct Sales and the Future of Local Food

Posted on February 18, 2013 by Brooke Edwards

Editor’s note: The following is a guest post from an outgoing Heifer International intern, Lesley Waterson. If you are interested in becoming an intern with Heifer International, please contact interns@heifer.org.

Friday was the conclusion of my internship with Heifer International. Since April 2012, I have been working closely with Heifer’s USA Country Program. I received assignments on a wide range of topics, which included internal management of Heifer USA’s documentation, investigation of state legislation to support local food, and research on direct sales avenues for local farmers. Seeing the newly renamed USA Seeds of Change Enterprise (SOC) evolve throughout the course of my time at Heifer has provided valuable perspective, and I am truly grateful to have worked with a team of passionate and creative individuals.

Lesley, right, and Heifer International staff member Senchel Matthews on a site visit in Hughes, Arkansas. Photo courtesy of Heifer International.

The shift in direction that SOC is taking will no doubt offer Heifer a plethora of new opportunities. With a strong entrepreneurial spirit, SOC will eventually lead to building relationships with food sector businesses and has the potential to play a larger role in how Americans get their food. But where does this process begin?

Poco a poco se anda lejos. English translation: “Little by little, one goes far.”

This is one of my favorite Spanish proverbs. To me, it means that success comes slowly and with deliberate steps. If we want to build a successful social enterprise for Heifer’s domestic farmers, we need to start small, create a strong cooperative model, and move toward expanding the market from there. One of the ways to start small is to establish a handful of direct markets. Direct markets (i.e. farmers’ markets, community supported agriculture [CSAs], online local buying programs) offer small- and mid-scale farmers a consistent and viable income. Products sold directly to consumers give farmers a higher profit margin than if they were to sell to a retail or wholesale supplier. (See http://newfarm.rodaleinstitute.org/depts/midatlantic/FactSheets/direct_mrkt.shtml for more information). Direct markets also side-step tedious bureaucratic processes and establish more wholesome relationships with the farmers’ clientele. Hopefully these relationships will help farmers to feel a strong sense of pride in both their products and what they are doing for the community at large.

In the research I completed on direct sales avenues, it seems that there is a growing trend of incorporating workplaces as a place for farmers to connect with new potential consumers. What’s more, workplaces offer a beautiful chance to incorporate health insurance benefits to employees. Many companies with workplace CSAs or food share programs have provided payroll deduction options and even discounts on health insurance premiums for employees who participate. These options make participating in direct local food programs all the more attractive.

Here are the perks in a nutshell:

Farmers gain access to a consistent market
Employees (i.e. clientele) get affordable access to higher quality produce and farm products
Partnering businesses get bragging rights on innovative employee benefits and wellness programs
Health insurance companies have healthier customers (and fewer expenses) due to increased consumption of nutrient-rich farm products

Because these workplace CSAs and food share programs are still gaining ground, the hardest players to convince about the employee health benefits are the health insurance companies. But even this obstacle is slowly being overcome. Today there are a few examples in which health insurance companies are following suit in promoting local food. For instance, Fairshare CSA Coalition—based out of Madison County, Wisconsin—has created a rebate program ($100 for individuals and $200 for families) to support employees who want to buy local food. The rebate program is managed by four insurance companies—not the businesses where employees work. Since the program’s inception in 2005, rebates were claimed for 75% of all coalition CSA shares…a whopping 28,000 rebates in total. Check out http://www.csacoalition.org/ for more information.

With the changing climate of the healthcare industry and high obesity rates in the U.S., preventative health care measures will begin to play a larger role in our lives. This makes for an ideal time to involve local food and farmers.

Let me not simplify the difficulty in developing direct markets. Implementing such a program will require a lot of time, patience and energy. It will demand a detailed and flexible planning period. However, countless articles and trends point to a growing demand for local food. The more we—as consumers—vote with our dollar in supporting locally sourced food, the bigger the message that sends to our government’s leaders to modify how subsidies are divvied up among farmers. The pendulum of where our food comes from is slowly swinging away from the globally sourced commodity crops and is shifting towards a more centralized food system. I look forward to seeing where the local food scene goes next!

Photo courtesy of Heifer International.

It is with bittersweet feelings that I conclude my internship with Heifer. It will be sad to leave all of the lovely employees and friends I’ve made who work at Headquarters, but the time that I’ve spent here has been overall an excellent experience. I look forward (and with great anticipation) to seeing how Heifer progresses—especially with such a colorful program like the Seeds of Change Enterprise.

We thank Lesley for her time here and wish her all the best in her future endeavors. If you are interested in becoming an intern with Heifer International, please contact interns@heifer.org.

Heifer Haiti’s REACH Project Builds a Foundation for Development

Posted on January 9, 2013 by Jason Woods

Last fall, Americas Area Vice President Oscar Castañeda shared his thoughts on Heifer Haiti’s Rural Entrepreneurs for Agricultural Cooperation in Haiti (REACH) project. REACH is a five-year project that will assist 20,250 rural households in Haiti through not only the distribution of livestock but also through improved market linkages and the construction and management of goat and swine breeding centers. Learn more about REACH here: www.heifer.org/reachout.

Gladys Vilport with one of her goats in Maniche, Haiti. Photo by Jason Woods, courtesy of Heifer International.

The project officially started in the second half of 2012, and the past several months staff members in Haiti have begun constructing the project.

“REACH is just like we’re building Haiti,” said Hervil Cherubin, Heifer Haiti director. “So you have to spend a lot of time to build a strong foundation, a strong base. Once you have that base, you can go ahead. That’s what we’ve been doing the first semester, building that base.”

REACH will be implemented in six of Haiti’s ten departments. So far, Heifer Haiti has selected 36 municipalities in four departments for REACH. About half of the communities where Heifer will work through the project have been identified as well.

To date, 100 project participants have received training. Sixty goats and 240 rabbits have also been distributed. Additionally, a fish hatchery was built for 15,000 fingerlings on Lake Peligre.

Goat and pig breeding centers are an important part of REACH. Heifer will build 97 goat and 50 swine breeding centers that will provide quality livestock for Haitians. Project participants will own the centers. Twenty-five breeding center owners have been selected already, and 19 breeding centers are under construction.

From December 4-6, Heifer Haiti hosted the Community Animal Health Worker (CAHW) Orientation Workshop in Les Cayes. The goal of the workshop was to develop a community-based animal health care system in Haiti through a “training of trainers” methodology, where workshop participants learned basic health care applicable for all animal species so that they can use that knowledge to train animal health workers in the field. During the workshop, participants and facilitators designed a three-week basic course to use for the participants’ training sessions in the field. In the next month, workshop participants will train 60 CAHWs to assist in the REACH project.

Partnerships for the project are also in the works with Haiti’s Ministry of Agriculture and several non-governmental organizations.

“Now we’re ready to start building on (our) base,” Cherubin said. “Structurally, (REACH) has been praised. Many people think, for the first time, there is a model that takes on the structural aspects of animal production in Haiti.”

REACH out to Haiti through a gift to Heifer today.

Heifer International’s Farmers Sell to Market in Hughes, Arkansas

Posted on December 19, 2012 by Erin Snow

Hughes Farmer's Market

Residents of Hughes, Arkansas, gathered for a farmer’s market on Saturday, November 17, 2012. Members of the Hughes community live in a food desert, meaning they don’t have easy access to a grocery store. Many of the farmers selling produce at the farmer’s market are part of Heifer’s Seeds of Change project, which works in the Delta and Appalachia regions of the United States to bring healthy, sustainable food to communities and connect smallholder farmers with local markets. Meredith Rolf, project manager for strategic initiatives, shares how Heifer farmers are changing their lives for the better.

Find out how you can help smallholder farmers in the USA.

“Seeds of Change” Farmers at Holiday Market

Posted on November 30, 2012 by Kelly MacNeil

Editor’s note: The following post is by Heifer International Arkansas Project Manager for the USA Seeds of Change project, Senchel Matthews.

On November 17, 2012, the small community of Hughes, Arkansas, held its very first farmer’s market. Several participants in Heifer International’s Seeds of Change project participated in the special event.

Residents and volunteers were up before sunrise to start preparations for the day’s big event. The cold crisp air did not stop the Heifer 4-H Youth club, which consists of 16 members, from coming out energized and ready to work.

As tables and tents popped up and fresh produce and goods were unloaded, I looked on with amazement as the blank canvas of land designated for the Hughes Holiday Farmer’s Market was transformed right before my eyes. Vendors arrived one by one, until all 11 were ready to sell their bounty of fruits, vegetables, handmade soaps, cakes, jams, honey and cupcakes. The “bounce house” and slide, which initially looked like a mass of colorful plastic, magically grew to a size larger-than-life and served as a magnet for children from the community.

The once quiet space was flooded with sweet music from the DJ who guaranteed me that before the day was over many patrons would dance while purchasing their goods and treats. He did not lie. Before I knew it I was engaged in a line dance with residents from the community.

I had the honor of talking with vendors about their fall growing experience and how many of them decided to venture into value-added goods such as turning tomatoes into spaghetti sauce and salsa or transforming zucchini into a delicious fluffy bread. I overheard patrons ask vendors questions about their produce and comment on how delicious the blueberry jam and soybean honey looked.

A few of the Arkansas Seeds of Change Delta Coalition members came out and showed their support through words of encouragement and purchases. The environment was teeming with activity and chatter. Hughes’ residents came out with their families and left with food and new acquaintances. Before the music stopped and the first table was broken down, inquires where made about when the next farmer’s market would take place. Since the nearest grocery store is 36 miles away, many residents were relieved to have access to fresh goods at the market before the Thanksgiving holiday.

As I packed up my bags of peppers, pak choi, kale, carrots, soaps and zucchini bread, I was approached by a lady who has lived in Hughes all her life. She walked up to me and gave me a hug and said “Thank you! We really needed this.” Little did she know I was the one thankful for having one of the best and tastiest Saturday’s of my life.

Heifer International’s Seeds of Change project works in Arkansas and Appalachia to help low-income Americans through sustainable agriculture.

South Africa Students Learn the Secret of Heifer International’s Success

Posted on November 21, 2012 by Erin Snow

Story by Magdalena Wos | Resource Development Officer | Heifer South Africa

Student Nokulunga Gasa and Zusiphe Heifer International project member David Ntombela

Nokulunga Gasa and Heifer South Africa project member David Ntombela stand in David's garden.

Photos by Buyani Khumalo | Livestock Coordinator | Heifer South Africa

Working closely together and sharing a spirit of unity is one of the reasons Heifer International farmers succeed. Three agriculture students from the University of KwaZulu-Natal learned this firsthand when they spent several weeks living and working with members of the Zusiphe Project in South Africa over the summer. The three women and one man left comfortable lives in the city to learn how residents of Nqundu village are fighting poverty and food insecurity on a daily basis.

During their stay, the students participated in training activities and spent time collecting data, analyzing soil and planting vegetables. They saw the obstacles residents deal with every day and learned how, as a group, community members overcome them.

Thobile Maphumulo with Heifer South Africa project member Grace Sikhakhane.

“I have learned that group members are taking care of each other and are united,” said 19-year-old student Inamandia Mngadi. “When the group received seedlings, some members did not have gardens yet, but they could plant their seedlings in the garden of one of the group members who are close to them. They are very supportive of each other.”

Living in Nqundu village helped the students understand that Heifer’s model is not to give a handout, but a “hand up.” Gifts such as seeds and livestock are a significant part of the project, but only through sharing the same values and being committed to working together and helping each other does the project succeed. The Zusiphe community is a great example of that.

The Zusiphe Project in northern KwaZulu-Naltal began in early 2012 and will lift approximately 1,000 people out of poverty. Participants have already received seedlings and started vegetable farms. Over the next few months and years they will begin farming goats and chickens.

Find out how you can give the gift of transformation.

Smallholder Farmers Key to Feeding Growing Population

Posted on October 31, 2012 by Brooke Edwards

It was one year ago today that the world population estimate hit 7 billion. Here at Heifer International, we’re continuing our work of helping smallholder farmers around the world learn sustainable agriculture practices, increase their family’s nutrition and income and contribute to community and economic development. Empowering smallholder farmers, especially women, to grow more food more sustainably is the best solution to ending hunger and poverty worldwide.

Josna Begam (middle) winnows rice with her mother, Monara Begam, in Johari, Natore, Bangladesh. Photo by Geoff Bugbee, courtesy of Heifer International.

Eighty percent of the developing world’s food is raised on about half a billion small farms.

An interesting, though long, read is “Sustainable smallholder agriculture: Feeding the world, protecting the planet” from the International Fund for Agricultural Development. In it, IFAD validates what Heifer has known for a long time.

Farmers face two stark realities over the next four decades: They must produce 70 per cent more food by 2050 to feed a growing, more urbanized population, and they must do so facing the likelihood that arable land in developing countries will increase by no more than 12 per cent. That monumental challenge can be met only if sustainability is the foundation of approaches to food security and poverty reduction in every country and every community. No other strategy has a hope of feeding current populations while protecting and restoring the natural resources that future generations will need to support their livelihoods.

Viewing the agriculture sector as renewable rather than extractive is the only way forward. This approach embraces the idea that agriculture is an interaction with wider ecosystems, while it simultaneously improves livelihood options for those who farm the world’s approximately 500 million smallholdings. In the long term, there is no trade-off between production and sustainability. In fact, the opposite is true: without sustainability, production will suffer.

On the anniversary of the world’s population reaching 7 billion, it’s good to take stock and remember where we’re headed: to 9 billion or so by 2050. If we want a chance at ensuring a decent, healthy life for each of those 9 billion, we must continue to invest in the world’s smallholder farmers.

Heifer’s Seeds of Change: Food Security in the Arkansas Delta, Appalachia

Posted on October 3, 2012 by Erin Snow

Area Vice President Oscar Castañeda shares how Heifer’s Seeds of Change project addresses food security in the Arkansas Delta and Central Appalachia regions of the United States. By teaching residents effective farming techniques and connecting them to markets, these seeds hold great promise for a bountiful harvest.

Self-Help Group Leaders Learn from Successful Farmer Cooperatives in Cambodia

Posted on September 12, 2012 by Erin Snow

Editor’s note: story by Chheang Sokmao | Program Officer – Northwest Region | Cambodia

Mr. Oun Sophal shares experiences from Rattanak Pol Rort Samai Cooperative

From August 13-15, 2012, Heifer Cambodia and two project partner organizations from the northwest region conducted an exchange visit to two successful farmer cooperatives. The exchange facilitated by Heifer Cambodia staff and executive directors from Cambodian Human Resource Development Organization (CHRD) in Banteay Meanchey province and Farmer Organic for Development Association (FODA) in Siem Reap province entailed visits to two successful farmer cooperatives in Kampot province: Rattanak Pol Rort Samaki and Samaki Sang Kroh. In attendance were 11 key community leaders and project management committee representatives, two community facilitators, one project coordinator and one commune council member.

Exchange Visitors at Kraing Snai Commune Cooperative

During the visit, participants learned about cooperative businesses, including credit, rice bank and rice business cooperatives, and the provision of other services for self-financing. The visitors enjoyed a firsthand look at the cooperation among community members on activities such as mobilizing social capital for local infrastructure, education, food security, sanitation and healthy hygiene, as well as strategies to reduce poverty for sustainable community development. The day-long sharing allowed the exchange of experiences and best practices between key community leaders and host cooperatives in Dong Tung and Chhouk district, Kampot province.

“Their cooperatives have been established for a long time, and they have good experience in leading the communities and their business development,” said Ms. Krouch Suk, a community facilitator from CHRD. “My team and I will bring experiences and best practices on business credit cooperatives, rice cooperatives, development themes and their leadership to improve my community.” Suk’s community group was organized two years ago, and she is proud of its achievements and looks forward to a future of close cooperation and continuing progress. She hopes that over the next few years it will grow even stronger.

Exchange Visitors at Damnak Dokrom Commune Cooperative

“At my community, the rice interest rate set by private lenders is very high, 50 percent per season, and this is a challenge for us,” said Ms. Rean Sokhom, a commune council member from FODA. “I want to have a community rice bank in my village where it will help the community during rice shortages.” The topic of business credit cooperatives was also a point of interest for Sokhom. She wants each self-help group to work together to have a larger savings fund at the commune level, as demonstrated by their hosts. She will propose these ideas at the next commune council meeting.

After the exchange visit, project partner representatives made a stop at Bokor Mountain Resort, where they took many photos. On the way back to their respective provinces, they shared experiences, built relationships and showed a strong commitment to use everything they learned to propel their communities toward prosperous business communities in the coming year.

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