Adassa Romilus, a spokeswoman for Heifer International, a charity that works with 30,000 farming families in Haiti, said many livestock placed in shelters for protection had been killed. “The shelters couldn’t withstand the force of the hurricane,” she said.
The key port of Les Cayes, the country’s third city is “very seriously damaged,” said Hervil Cherubin, Haiti director for the aid group Heifer International. “Most roofs of houses, shops, gas stations are all gone.”
“Businesses near the ocean have totally disappeared, washed away,” he added, with farms “disappeared” and livestock killed.
THOUSANDS of dairy farmers in East Africa are poised to benefit from a US4 million programme initiated by Heifer International in support of the United Nations’ International Fund for Agricultural Development.
A United Nations agency is partnering with an Arkansas-based nonprofit group to launch a $4 million program for dairy farmers in East Africa.
The three-year initiative between the International Fund for Agricultural Development and Heifer International will set up dairy hubs to help farmers in Tanzania and Rwanda collect and sell their milk. The program will involve 3,850 families in the two countries.
The Little Rock-based nonprofit — a neighbor of Clinton’s presidential library — helped provide goats to thousands of Haitians and then gave assistance on how to breed, feed and market the animals. Heifer International President and CEO Pierre Ferrari joined others onstage as Clinton thanked the participants and praised their work.
Can Heifer International’s gift of a cow really change a life? Yes, say two professors who studied the model in Zambia and found that families receiving livestock doubled their daily income while nearby families didn’t change theirs much. Alex Winter-Nelson and Peter Goldsmith with the University of Illinois Urbana-Champagne traveled to Zambia’s Copperbelt Province and then reported on their work during an address at the Clinton School of Public Service Thursday.
A farmers’ cooperative in north Arkansas has received a new source of funding to reduce costs and increase production in the state.
Clinton-based Grass Roots Farmers’ Cooperative, which includes 13 farms, announced Friday that it received a $600,000 loan from San Francisco-based RSF Social Finance.
Small businesses need support to thrive, and that is particularly true in the world of farming where the learning curve is steep, the risk is high, and if that wasn’t enough, farmers also must to do their own marketing, distribution and administrative tasks to survive.
According to Dr. Mahendra Lohani, the Senior Vice President, Heifer International Programs for Africa, Asia and Europe, cooperatives will support farmers gain a good capital share out of their investments.
Since 2002, farmers have received a total of 527 heifers through the program, which was started with $74,500 seed money granted to the co-op by Heifer International.
Heifer International is an NGO that works mainly in developing countries such as Guatamala, Haiti, and Nicaragua, but its larger goal to alleviate hunger and poverty in rural areas applies to several rural part of the U.S. as well. Heifer International has provided support for similar programs in three rural other counties in Mississippi—Covington, Attala, and Wayne Counties
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