HER Farming Cooperative (Haiti)
Food insecurity is a primary concern for people in Haiti—especially for the rural poor: 76 percent of Haitians live below the poverty line of US$2 per day and 56 percent live on less than US$1 per day. Right now at least 2.5 million people living in Haiti do not have enough to eat. Derac, home to the HER (Haitian Economic Response) Farming Cooperative, is a community of 3000 people in the marginalized North-East Department who live on about 50¢ a day and whose average daily consumption is around 1000 calories. This is a place where it is not uncommon for a child to go weeks without a vegetable or a piece of fruit.
The HER Farming Cooperative is empowering 200 women cooperative members to be active agents in solving the problem of food poverty in their homes and community by providing land, tools, and education in agricultural production. In addition to equipping these women to sustainably produce sufficient food for their family’s consumption, One Village Planet-Women’s Development Initiative made a Commitment to Action at the Clinton Global Initiative's Annual Summit in 2011 to assist the HER Cooperative members to cultivate—and establish markets for—high-value products, which will be sold to generate the income they need to sustain the Cooperative’s activities and to support and educate their children. Especially their daughters—rural Haitian girls are half as likely as rural Haitian boys to get the opportunity to go to school.
The HER Farming Cooperative is empowering 200 women cooperative members to be active agents in solving the problem of food poverty in their homes and community by providing land, tools, and education in agricultural production. In addition to equipping these women to sustainably produce sufficient food for their family’s consumption, One Village Planet-Women’s Development Initiative made a Commitment to Action at the Clinton Global Initiative's Annual Summit in 2011 to assist the HER Cooperative members to cultivate—and establish markets for—high-value products, which will be sold to generate the income they need to sustain the Cooperative’s activities and to support and educate their children. Especially their daughters—rural Haitian girls are half as likely as rural Haitian boys to get the opportunity to go to school.
