1. Zanmi Kafe- Sustainable Agroforestry and Payments for Ecosystem Services in Haiti
Zanmi Kafe (Partners in Coffee) represents a collaborative effort between
Sewanee, the NGOs Partners in Health and Partners in Agriculture, and farmers to
establish diverse and more sustainable tree-based agroecosystems in the deforested
central plateau region of Haiti through the reintroduction of shade-grown coffee.
During the summer of 2014, Sewanee students Elizabeth Sega, Geanina Fripp, Scott
Summers, and Duncan Pearce, helped distribute the first round of coffee and
multipurpose tree seedlings from a nursery in the mountain village of Bois Jolie to
farmers. After distributing the coffee seedlings, the students along with four Haitian
agronomy students began sampling farms in the village of Bois Jolie for baseline
biodiversity (beetles, ants, birds and butterflies) and continued the socioeconomic
survey. Upon returning to Sewanee, students began the process of ant identification,
the most successful biodiversity study of the summer. Along with the help of Sean
McKenzie, a Sewanee alum studying the chemical ecology of ants, and Dr. David
Lubertazzi, a Dominican ant expert at Harvard, Geanina and Scott were able to
identify the ants and learn how to identify ants on their own. After Sewanee
students left Haiti in June, the four Haitian agronomy students continued sampling
biodiversity in order to achieve a thesis under the guidance of Sewanee Biology
Professor Deborah McGrath.
In January 2015, Sewanee students returned to Haiti to help the Haitian
agronomy students with their biodiversity sampling and identification methods. The
team returned to Bois Jolie to visit with the farmers and check on the newly planted
seedlings. Scott and Geanina both identified a new coffee pest, scale, as well as ants
farming the scale. This new find allowed Geanina and Scott to focus their upcoming
summer research on interactions among coffee pests and their predators and prey.
Crucial to the summer research will be data on the extent and the severity of the
scale (and other pests) across all farms in Bois Jolie. This data will be gathered by
Sewanee students on the spring break outreach trip in March. Twenty-two Sewanee
students led by Elizabeth and Duncan will inventory tree survival, growth and
health. In addition to pest management, this data will allow the farmers to receive
their first carbon sequestration payment, incentivizing farmers to plant and
maintain more diverse and resilient agroecosystems. We also hiked to a new village,
Morne Michelle, where we met with farmers interested in starting a coffee nursery.
There, we found a “disappearing variety” of old coffee trees full of flowers and
berries but free of diseases. This variety is important for us to study as it may be
better adapted to the conditions and less vulnerable to pests.
Most importantly, the continued collaboration and follow up is key to the
success of this project. It’s easy to plant, but the struggle lies in protecting the young
trees from competing land uses and pests until they grow into productive income-
generating agroecosystems. Both Sewanee and Haitian students are enthusiastic
about the long-term collaborative engagement and seeing this project thrive.