Sustainable Harvest International

Global food systems rely on industrial farming. These practices leave humanity with poor nutrition, poor soil, water, and air quality, poor human relations, and a climate poorly suited to human survival; situations that have been brought into greater relief by the COVID pandemic. SHI partners with smallholder farmers through a phased training program based in knowledge sharing and regenerative practices rather than external inputs. SHI’s multi-year agroecology extension program enables smallholder farmers to improve their families’ incomes, diets, and environment with practices that cost less, produce more and diversified foods, stabilize the climate, and improve resilience in the face of climate change and other crises. If all 500 million of the world’s smallholder farms used the practices taught by SHI on their farms, they would draw down six billion tons of CO2 out of the atmosphere every year – enough to stabilize the climate if paired with reductions in emissions.    

Most of the world’s one billion food-insecure people, and 70% of those who live in extreme poverty reside in rural areas. Ninety percent of smallholder farms and most large-scale farms, use agro-chemicals, burning, and other practices that degrade the land and water. More forest is cleared each year to replace previously degraded land. These are major factors in our current global food system’s contribution to approximately half of greenhouse gas emissions. In Belize, Honduras, and Panama, the majority of farmers are smallholders living below the poverty line. Most agricultural extension programs promote high-cost inputs that lead to a host of negative outcomes such as soil degradation. Training in regenerative practices that reverse these negative trends are rarely available to smallholders who most benefit from them and are most ready to embrace them. Most training models are too short-term and narrowly focused to successfully address the inter-sectional issues of poverty, nutrition, and degenerative farming practices.  

SHI’s approach also improves smallholder farmer’s resilience in the face of climate change and increases family and community stability. The program provides smallholder farmers with the tools and knowledge to thrive in the face of global and regional crises (as SHI farmers have done through COVID). 

SHI spreads regenerative agroecology practices by hiring local Field Trainers, each of whom works with a cohort of small-holder farmers and their families, visiting them every week or two for several years sharing new practices that build on each other and on the farmers’ existing knowledge. SHI’s Field Trainers, native to the country and often the region where they work, are carefully selected for their expertise. They work with farmers to find individual, locally appropriate, regenerative farming solutions. Over five distinct phases with measurable outcomes and outputs, farmers learn these “new-to-smallholders” regenerative techniques, such as the use of cover crops, mulch, compost, erosion control, intercropping, and agroforestry practices that integrate trees with other crops. As farmers implement these approaches, they drawdown CO2 out of the atmosphere through increased organic matter and permanent crops. This in turn supports increased and diversified crop production helping farms withstand impacts of climate change and bringing back native biodiversity. Increased and diversified harvests allow farmers to feed themselves well, increase farm income, and share their success with neighbors.  

SHI partners with smallholder farming families who live with poverty, food insecurity, and environmental degradation. SHI’s long-term, individualized agroecology extension model improves farm production, income, and family health. The adopted farming practices also make significant contributions to keeping the planet livable for humanity. The model is centered around knowledge exchange that leads to ongoing improvements in soil, farm, and family health that is passed from generation to generation. Currently, over 60% of SHI’s Field Trainers are women, many of whom are graduates from the program. Field Trainers partner with farmer households in every step of the process; from creating their farm plan and addressing problems as they arise, to preparing for graduation from the program and becoming community leaders. Each family works closely with their Field Trainer to create their own plan that considers their unique farm conditions, the production potential, and their resources and needs. Each family decides on the variety of crops and techniques they will add to their farm to meet their environmental, nutritional, and income goals. 

SHI’s model has proven successful in four countries across different climatic regions and with different ethnic groups. The results are long-lasting, as demonstrated by SHI’s 2018 report on 300 families who had graduated from its program in Honduras and Panama. The study found that 91% continue to use regenerative agro-ecology practices years after graduation, providing improved income and diet, as well as multiple environment benefits.  

Agricultural extension has traditionally focused on providing farmers with expensive, environmentally destructive agro-chemicals to grow a few commodity crops used to produce unhealthy foods. SHI provides farmers with new knowledge to increase production of diverse crops that improve family nutrition, environmental health, and family incomes.  The techniques taught in SHI’s program also decrease greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere with SHI farms drawing down 16 tons of carbon from the atmosphere each year. SHI has flipped the typical extension model on its head to create one based on sharing knowledge that has no long-term cost to maintain. 

SHI has a proven model. Over 24 years SHI has impacted over 3,000 farmers and their families. During this time, SHI has also planted four million trees on degraded lands, sequestered 48,000 tons of CO2, and regenerated 26,000 acres of soil in four countries; these accomplishments transcended diverse cultures, climates, and geographies. The organization’s directors have formally committed to scaling its approach to reach 1 million smallholder farmers by 2030. SHI is engaged in specific scale strategies that include: model replication through partnerships, expansion of the core program, and innovation in select communities and farms to test innovations.

Agricultural extension has traditionally focused on providing farmers with expensive environmentally destructive agro-chemicals and limited new knowledge for increasing agricultural productivity. SHI has flipped that model on its head to create an extension program based on sharing of knowledge that has no long-term cost to maintain. SHI’s model is based on a knowledge exchange, without provision of a “tool kit” or set of seeds. Through a long-term relationship between a local expert Field Trainer and a smallholder famer, knowledge on regenerative practices are learned, practiced, and continually improved. This new knowledge leads to a change in consciousness of farmers, which results in increases in agricultural productivity, biodiversity, and improved environmental health.

Most agricultural extension programs promote high-cost inputs and deleterious outcomes; often leading farmers into bankruptcy while degrading soils and reducing their long-term productivity. Training in regenerative practices that reverse these negative trends are rarely available to smallholders who most benefit from them. When training is available, it’s too short-term and narrowly focused to be successful.

SHI’s extension program has always taken a long-term, integrated approach, providing weekly technical assistance over multiple years. By 2007 SHI was promoting 100% organic practices. These “new-to-smallholders” regenerative techniques – such as cover crops, mulch, compost, and agroforestry –   increase productivity, resilience, and environmental improvements. As harvests increase, farmers embrace these practices and teach their neighbors. In these ways, the impact cascades across communities and through families. 

SHI currently works directly with 382 smallholder farm families encompassing 1,920 people in three countries: Belize, Honduras and Panama and have another 3,000 families encompassing 15,000 people in our alumni network.  SHI’s scale-up plan includes a detailed approach to expand our reach to be working directly with 600 smallholder farm families and to impact an additional 50 farmers through replication partnerships for a total of 3,250 people in 650 families by the end of 2021. By the end of 2025, we intend to be working directly with 1500 smallholder farm families and an additional 50,000 families through replication partnerships for a total of 257,500 people in 51,500 families.  

SHI is utilizing output indicators for the three strategies for scaling:

Increse the nubmer of current farmers working directly with SHI Field Trainers is being measured by the number of Field Trainers employed with SHI.  In general terms, each Field Trainer works with 30 families, so grow will occur in 30 family increments.

Work through replicating partnerships are measured at the output level in terms of the number of MOUs and/or other agreements signed, and at the outcome level based on specific measures of partnership success that are specific to each partnership.

Innovations to our approach will be measured at the outcome level, based on the indicators in the five areas of impact for individual farmers. 

26 Full Time Staff (5 in the US, 21 in Latin America)

2 Contracted Staff 

Florence Reed, SHI Founder + Director of Strategic Growth: Florence Reed founded SHI based on her experience as a Peace Corps Volunteer in rural Panama.  Now, as SHI’s chief visionary and networker, Florence brings together farmers, donors, staff, collaborators, and others to catalyze changes for a better future. Her entrepreneurial spirit and interest in expanding horizons makes identifying new opportunities for co-evolution a favorite part of Florence’s work.           

Elliott Powell, SHI Executive Director: Elliott Powell brings experience as SHI’s Director of International Programs, as well as having been a Peace Corps Volunteer in Nicaragua with degrees in Environmental Management and Latin American studies from Tulane University.  Mr. Powell believes in the strength of partnerships between local and international organizations to solve complex problems and bring positive change to smallholder farmers’ lives. 

Rodrigo Rodriguez, Panama Director: Rodrigo Rodriguez first discovered the beauty of agriculture at the Institute for Agricultural Studies of Havana (ISCAH) in Cuba. After completing his studies, Rodrigo returned to Panama, where he dedicated his life to community development and agriculture, and his family. Seeing the success of the families he works with motivates Rodrigo to forge ahead in bringing national recognition to the program for its innovation and dedication to Panama’s people and environment in rural areas. 

SHI is led through close collaboration amongst key headquarters staff and directors of each country program, who in turn work closely and collaboratively with our field trainers who in turn work closely and collaboratively with the farmers who partner with us.  A local board in each country also plays a key leadership role.  Local boards consist of local professionals with experience relevant to SHI’s work and farmers who have graduated from the SHI program.  SHI’s 24 years of successfully partnering with vulnerable farmers to catalyze change from impoverished livelihoods and land to flourishing harvests, land, and families makes us unique in the world of extension programs. Local Field Trainers, all from the country where they work and many SHI graduates, work hand-in-hand with each farming family to create and implement individualized farm plans to meet each family’s livelihood, health, nutrition and environmental goals.  Graduates from our program not only improve health and environmental outcomes for their family, their self-esteem and dignity are restored.  

SHI is at a critical juncture, having documented the positive impacts of our approach on 3,000 families and the planet’s health and knowing the precarious situation of our planet’s health.  Our staff, board and participants see the potential to scale this approach to draw down millions of tons of CO2 from the atmosphere, preserve existing forests and plant a billion trees on previously degraded land while  helping low-income, small-scale farmers to improve their diets, income and resilience to climate change, pandemics and other challenges. 

Becoming a Solver would not only provide funds and connections to funders in support of our next steps towards scaling up, but of equal importance, would give us the opportunity to connect with businesses, government agencies and institutes of higher learning who we will need as replicating partners to reach our goal of impacting a million farms by 2030.

Connections made through the Solve network would also be invaluable to us in expanding our base of advisors to help guide us through the new terrain we will need to navigate to reach our scale-up goal.  Last but not least, the prestige and visibility of the Solve community will help us, in conjunction with our allies in regenerative agriculture, to raise public awareness about the  potential that regenerative agriculture and the smallholder farmers who can most benefit from it have to restore ecosystems and bring greenhouse gasses back to pre-industrial levels.

SHI would like to partner with potential replicating partners for our regenerative agroecology extension program such as agriculture or environment ministries, leaders of large international development and environmental organizations, businesses in the food sector, media outlets and academic teams who could analyze additional impacts of our program.  Also, we would specifically like to partner with MIT’s D-Lab for R&D on one or more pilots of our innovation ideas to help our model scale faster and with MIT’s J-WAFS to research a supply chain mechanism for large numbers of small-scale, diverse farms in remote communities.

Any organizations that MIT has connections to that would advance SHI's ability to connect with and pitch to potential replicating partners.