SHI-Panama staff and families consider their recent commercialization of produce as a monumental step forward. In the past, most families would sell their produce for whatever price a middle-man would offer.  Now, seventeen families in El Entradero sell their produce in Panama City via a CSA model (Community Supported Agriculture) in partnership with a local business, Culantro Rojo.  

SHI-Panama is setting the stage to open three new rural community loan banks in El Entradero. Also, with co-financing from Fundacion Natura, SHI-Panama is beginning a project in the Panama Canal Watershed zone which focuses on home gardens and wood conserving stoves. This project will be a starting point for SHI-Panama to establish itself in this environmentally sensitive region of the country.  

SHI-Panama has recently established 25 biointensive gardens and has begun soil testing in the communities of Pagua and San Juanito. In the last year, SHI-Panama participants successfully converted 59 acres to sustainable land use practices, while reforesting 22 acres with 15,986 trees.