Sustainable Harvest International

Over 3,000 families who have received technical assistance through Sustainable Harvest International are producing an abundance of healthy foods, increasing their income and improving our environment with agro-ecology. If the world’s 500 million smallholders gain access to agro-ecology extension services such as those provide by SHI, they can eliminate hunger and poverty while improving the environment we all depend on.   Now, SHI is scaling our approach with our "Million Farm Transformation" initiative to lead the way to transitioning one million smallholder farmers to regenerative agriculture techniques by 2030.  Through a three pronged approach: intentional partnerships with entities that will replicate our approach, growing the number of farmers that work directly with SHI, and innovating on our approach to make it more cost effective, SHI will reverse degredation on 8 million farms and bring food security to 5 million families.  The MIT Elevate Award would not only provide funding needed to achieve this, but also validate our work and allow us entry into a new network of critical partners.

SHI's Founder, Florence Reed, served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in rural Panama, where she saw tropical forests burned every year by farmers desperate to increase land productivity to feed their families. Driven to offer an alternative, Reed did research on sustainable alternatives during her Peace Corps tenure, training farmers on ecological techniques. Moved by the positive outcomes she saw, Reed sought to build upon this tremendous potential, which led to the founding of SHI in 1997. Since that time, SHI has:

Assisted 3,000 participants in the planting and subsequent care of over 4 million trees on degraded lands, facilitating annual sequestration of 50,000+ tons of carbon.  

Supported 3,000 participants in the regeneration of over 26,000 acres through forest preservation, agroforestry plantations, agroecology plots, and reforestation.  

Improved nutritional diversity of 15,000 individuals, with participants having regular access to at least two new protein sources (milk, eggs, chicken, fish, etc.) and at least nine new plant products. 

Our model has proven successful in four countries across different climatic regions and with different ethnic groups, as demonstrated by our 2018 survey of 300 SHI graduate families in Honduras and Panama. 91% continue to use regenerative agro-ecology practices.   

Degenerative farming increases water, air, and soil contamination, climate chaos, poverty, rural flight and biodiversity loss. This downward spiral in rural communities in Latin America is exacerbated by the impacts of climate change resulting in an uncertain and desperate landscape for most of the region’s small farmers.  When their land no longer sustains their families, farmers are forced into exploitive work conditions for insufficient pay on large conventional farms that further degrade the environment or out of their communities to urban areas to seek low-paying, low-dignity jobs. In all cases, as land health erodes for vulnerable farmers, so does their health, dignity, and community connections. While most of the world’s 500 million smallholder farmers are willing to embrace ecological farming practices that reverse negative trends, they aren’t offered holistic assistance to make a transition. 

SHI offers our regenerative agriculture extension program to communities based on assessments of where we can have the greatest impacts on environmental and human well-being.  Local SHI staff, native to the country and often the region, 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. 

SHI has solidified four key elements that make its unique approach successful and impactful: a) Providing long-term assistance to ensure the approaches we introduce take root; b) Selecting communities based on socio-economic and environmental conditions; c) Understanding that effective development and ecological solutions come from the grassroots level; and d) Empowering local individuals and promoting the sharing of knowledge and resources to build resilient communities that stand on their own. The systemic change created by integrating these elements into extension programs around the world, can increase smallholder farmer agency, improve family health, decrease and sequester significant quantities of greenhouse gas emissions and regenerate land for generations to come.

Our current five-phase program supports one local field trainer working directly with approximately 35 farmers every week for four years. Our model is centered around knowledge exchange, leading to sustainable improvements in soil, farm and family health that is passed from one generation to another.  Through a phased approach focused on providing hands-on, practical techniques that build on farmers existing assets and knowledge, SHI focuses on the following key areas of impact that are routinely monitored:

• Agroforestry: Sustainable farming and forestry preserve local cultures and the environment.
• Environment: Tropical forests are preserved to maintain life-sustaining functions.
• Food Sovereignty: Households and communities produce healthy foods in sufficient quantity to meet their needs.
• Livelihood: Household income increases along with the ability to meet basic household needs. Learning Capacity: Individual and community empowerment, innovation, and leadership

SHI’s technical assistance supports farmers to: 1) plant more carbon sequestering trees and perennial  crops, 2) reintroduce native crops suited to regenerative practices, 3) adopt the use of cover crops, intercropping, composting, and other techniques , 4)eliminate synthetic inputs that produce greenhouse gas emissions and decrease soil organic carbon, and 5) Intensify production with sustainable cropping systems.