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Thursday, 19 August 2010 14:33

Panama Program Update - Fall 2010

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.

Published in Panama
English

“Sustainable Harvest International (SHI) is the ideal partner… It is one thing to visit the SHI website and read the various reports and informational materials, but seeing the program in action was incredible. It is obvious that SHI is making a real difference in improving the lives of these farmers and their families.”

~Diane Ragone, Ph.D., Director, The Breadfruit Institute, National Tropical Botanical Garden

 
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