Peasants, agroforesters, and anthropologists: A 20-year venture in income-generating trees and hedgerows in Haiti

Background

During the colonial period, plantation systems used Haiti's land primarily for extractive agriculture, leading to deforestation and soil erosion. Earlier reforestation efforts failed because they followed conservationist ideals that ignored the practical needs of a densely populated country. Government bureaucracies mismanaged many foreign-funded initiatives, leading to their collapse. By the late 1970s, donors began seeking new approaches to tree planting in Haiti. This shift in focus spurred the creation of the Agroforestry Outreach Project and its successors, which prioritized strategies based on Haitian land tenure, tree tenure, and market systems. From 1981 to 2000, the Agroforestry Outreach Project enabled over 300,000 Haitian smallholders to plant fast-growing wood trees on their land.

Goals and Methods

The authors examine the trajectory and key insights of the Agroforestry Outreach Project. They frame the project as an evolving system and identify four core systemic components common to most agroforestry initiatives: technical planning, benefit-flow planning, fund management, and village outreach strategies. They use a range of empirical studies to integrate both qualitative and quantitative data, providing a comprehensive analysis of the project's development and impact.

Conclusions and Takeaways

The authors identify several key factors behind the project's success, including its alignment with local customs and institutions, its emphasis on the economic benefits of tree planting for smallholders, and its reliable provision of subsidized, high-quality seedlings. They note that farmers integrated the trees into their farming systems in ways that reflected their unique needs and priorities. Drawing from these findings, the authors present a series of lessons for designing and implementing similar projects. They stress the importance of securing tree tenure, allowing farmers to control harvesting and marketing decisions, and ensuring ongoing public or private support for seedling distribution. The authors promote a “domestication” approach to agroforestry, which encourages treating trees as crops to be planted and harvested rather than as natural resources to be preserved. They argue that this approach fosters greater adoption of tree planting. Finally, they conclude that the project's success in Haiti shows how smallholder tree planting can effectively increase incomes and improve livelihoods, even in extremely poor countries.