Faces of Recovery: The seed masters

One hundred and twenty farmers who belong to an association in the town of Jérémie in south-west Haiti have been trained by the UN’s Food andAgriculture Organization (FAO) to produce seeds for other farmers across the region, an initiative which has proved particularly crucial as communities recover from the earthquake.

“My name is Pierre Ybert and like my fellow association members. I have received technical training from FAO on producing good-quality seeds. Today, we are planting black beans and once we harvest the seeds, we will sell them through FAO for distribution to other vulnerable farmers.

This earthquake impacted rural communities the most. About half of our members lost either their house or seed store so the work we are doing is an important part of the recovery process.

Our life is improving, but then there is an earthquake, cyclone or drought, and that pushes our development back. But, I love farming and this is my future.”