MFK Recent News

Sony Charles lives in Welsh, Haiti, a community of a few hundred small framers near the Dominican border. It is a very pretty area with rolling hills and mountains rising up to the central plateau. However, the area is poor and often farmers lose their entire harvests due to drought; it was hit extremely hard during the 2008 food crisis.
Sony is 32, married and has two young kids. His family runs a small bakery (very tasty peasant style bread) and farms, mostly peanuts. His mother and all of his brothers have their own peanut gardens. His wife, Roselyn, now works with the local women's group that has started an artisanal peanut butter factory aiming to sell peanut butter to the Dominican market. Sony helped arrange for them to receive funding through the United Nations Development Program, but they are still having difficulty because the glass jars they need for packaging are unavailable in Haiti, and cost two times the value of the peanut butter when purchased in the Dominican Republic. Sony also helped the women's group build a storage building for peanuts that allows them to keep seed through the dormancy period and resell it at a small profit. In addition, two years ago Sony helped organize a local group to fund the construction of a bridge across a river that previously would cut off the community entirely during the rainy season.
 

 
Though Sony probably makes most of his income as a mason, he has always been a person who grows peanuts and buys peanuts from all the surrounding farmers. In this capacity, he has really led the charge to work with Meds & Food for Kids. He has connected James Rhoads, MFK’s agriculture development specialist, with a local Oxfam-funded peanut and manioc (cassava) project, and has taken what he learned from MFK’s peanut training to ask this project for more help in improving their quality so that they can sell us more peanuts and not poison their children.  He has pushed the international funded projects in the area to accomplish something of lasting benefit for the community.  He gave James a piece of land to plant a small variety trial plot and has arranged to have it weeded and tended.  MFK gave him a bag of our US peanut seed and he gave all the growers around a little to try, and started a competition to see who would have the nicest garden.  Sony is motivated to create a vibrant community where he lives, and is now building a new house in Welsh, rather than on the better situated Dominican border.

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Meds & Food for Kids saves the lives of Haiti's malnourished children by producing and distributing highly nutritious foods, including Medika Mamba, a Ready-to-Use Therapeutic Food endorsed by the World Health Organization and UNICEF. Because of its commitment to Haiti's long-term development, MFK produces Medika Mamba in Haiti, with Haitian labor, and with many Haitian raw materials.

Tim Brenneman and David Jordan are associated with Meds & Food For Kids through a USAID funded project, the Peanut Collaborative Research and Support Project (PCRSP). Both recently joined MFK’s agronomist James Rhoads for a visit to assess trial plots, collect soil samples, plant more than 15 varieties of seed with local growers, collect data, and meet with potential partners for future collaborative efforts.


Pictured: David Jordan, front and Tim Brenneman, background.

Tim is a plant pathologist and professor at the University of Georgia. He has a PhD in plant pathology and heads up a university level program that focuses on improving disease management treatment strategies via an integrated approach of cultural practices, resistant germplasm, and wise use of fungicides. David Jordan is a crop science extension specialist and professor at North Carolina State University. He holds a PhD in agronomy and brings many years of professional experience in international activities primarily associated with peanut production and pest management in Ghana, West Africa. Each bring a keen awareness and understanding of the differences in agricultural practices between the United States and Haiti, partly because they recognize the limits of their knowledge and its applicability in an environment so vastly different. This was evident when after a long day in the field spent observing, conversing with local farmers, and learning lessons, Tim talked about the importance of knowing when to take a back seat. Expertise somewhere is not expertise everywhere. “It pays to talk to the locals,” said Tim after a brief visit with a peasant farmer that included a tour of his land. He continued, “This man knows his land. They do a lot more observing than I do. I mean, I’ve never had problems with rats eating peanuts prior to harvesting in the United States where everything is controlled for and easily monitored.” Tim was unlikely to prefer the specific variety of peanuts preferred by the farmer. However, after hearing from the farmer and relying on local knowledge, Tim understood why he would rather put in the extra time doing hard labor in order to produce any yield at all, especially when the other option could be none at all. He reiterates without hesitation, “It pays to talk to the locals.”

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Meds & Food for Kids saves the lives of Haiti's malnourished children by producing and distributing highly nutritious foods, including Medika Mamba, a Ready-to-Use Therapeutic Food endorsed by the World Health Organization and UNICEF. Because of its commitment to Haiti's long-term development, MFK produces Medika Mamba in Haiti, with Haitian labor, and with many Haitian raw materials.