IMPACT FARMING FOUNDATION

ENVIRONMENTAL INNOVATION & FINANCIAL TOOLS FOR SMALLHOLDER FARMERS

Haiti’s agricultural economy and climate have been in crisis for decades due to deforestation and a lack of training and resources for smallholder farmers (farmers tending to less than five acres). The Impact Farming Foundation (IFF) is helping to reverse this trend by supporting Haiti’s Smallholder Farmers Alliance (SFA). The SFA aims to revive the agricultural sector and help reforest Haiti by empowering Haitian smallholder farmers to grow, transplant and look after trees as a way to earn credits, or “tree currency,” which they exchange for seeds, tools, training and other services. This year’s funding from The VF Foundation supported development of the SFA supply chain model, increasing overall capacity to help significantly increase the number of farmers growing cotton in partnership with Timberland®. The funding also supported a pilot test for a new data app that can track and measure regenerative cotton production as well as smallholder-planted trees with the aim of scaling practices for global use. The SFA’s regenerative cotton project was announced at The Clinton Global Initiative 2022 meeting alongside the United Nations General Assembly. Additionally, this grant was used to help launch a national youth environmental service program and create a comic book that helped enlist youth as environmental stewards. And, when an earthquake struck the south of Haiti in August 2021, funds from The VF Foundation were used to provide immediate relief and offer long-term recovery support to the nearly 1,000 SFA farm family members who were severely affected.