We are pleased to share an update on SHI’s work over the course of 2019.  SHI continued to see wonderful and exciting results from all three of our country programs.  

We are so grateful to our supporters who continue to make SHI’s work possible. Here are a few notable highlights of our work in 2019:

In November 2019, SHI-Belize staff formed part of the organizing committee for the second annual Tropical Agricultural Conference in Belize. Following the conference, Roland Bunch, a renowned global expert on international tropical agriculture and extension services, visited SHI’s work to provide a workshop in green manures and cover crops for Belize and Honduras staff.

SHI-Belize is actively partnering with 79 families for a total of 446 direct beneficiaries.

SHI-Honduras selected a new community to join the program and is actively brokering new partnerships with area organizations, managing special projects, and organizing capacity-building activities in and around the communities where we work. Among other projects, SHI-Honduras held an extensive seed fair to promote the reintroduction of maize varieties that have been extinct in the fields since the 1980s!

SHI-Honduras is actively partnering with 199 families for a total of 820 direct beneficiaries.

SHI-Panama added three new communities to the program and continued to forge critical alliances and partnerships with organizations like the Peace Corps, Bridges to Prosperity, Global Brigades, APAO, and Engineers Without Borders.

In June 2019, SHI-Panama hosted the 5th annual Asociación Panameña de Agricultura Orgánica (APAO) congress. This event brought together actors from around Central America to push forward an organic agriculture agenda for Panama and addressed topics such as seed distribution, circular economy, and climate change adaptation for small-scale farmers.

SHI-Panama is actively partnering with 148 families for a total of 740 direct beneficiaries. 

LEADERSHIP TRANSITIONS

After five years working with SHI as the Director of International Programs, Elliott Powell became SHI’s Executive Director in March 2019. Elliott works closely with Flo who maintains her role as the Director of Strategic Growth and focuses on scaling up SHI’s impact.

VISIONS FOR SCALE

SHI has set the ambitious goal to impact one million farms by 2030. In 2019, the board and staff of SHI continued research, analysis, and capacity-building in order to lay the necessary groundwork for an achievable plan to get to scale.

EARTH UNIVERSITY PARTNERSHIP

SHI continued its important partnership with Earth University, hosting three university student interns for the fifth year in a row. This year’s interns focused on the introduction of soldier flies as an important food source for chickens and fish. One intern also assisted with a project utilizing remote sensing and satellite images to research reforestation and water catchment. 

The work of previous EARTH interns has resulted in three academic papers on improved stove efficiency; seed distribution networks; and the impact of crop diversification on health and diets. SHI’s Program Manager, an EARTH University professor, and a member of the German Agency for International Development presented these research findings at Tropentag 2019, a prestigious tropical agriculture conference in Germany.

REGENERATIVE AGRICULTURE ALLIANCE

Our Founder + Director of Strategic Growth joined the founding board of the Regenerative Agriculture Alliance (RAA) which works to scale up the infrastructure for regenerative agriculture nationally and internationally. RAA is focused on key industry sectors like regenerative poultry, organic grains and feed, agroforestry systems, native-led regenerative bison, regenerative pork, and grass fed and finished beef and dairy.

THE DRAWDOWN REPORT

Nathan Johnson produced three episodes of The Drawdown Report, a mini docu-series highlighting the climate change impacts of our work in each country program. Watch the episodes here.

COP25

In December 2019, SHI again sent delegates to the United Nations Climate Change Conference, where our Executive Director and a board member advocated for the important role of regenerative agroecology practices in stabilizing the climate.