Agroforestry training and extension: the experience from Haiti

Abstract

An agroforestry project was funded by the US Agency for International Development and implemented by the Pan American Development Foundation in Haiti from 1981 to 1991. This project is considered by many to be one of the most successful projects of its kind in Haiti, and in the tropics as a whole. Over the ten years of its implementation, the project, referred to in Haitian Creole as ‘Pwoje Pyebwa’ (‘Tree Project’), evolved from a tree production and planting project to a much broader soil-conservation-based program involving trees. This paper summarizes the training and extension systems that developed during that period. The socioeconomic background studies that were done before the project began, and the flexible, consultative mode of field-team implementation, incorporating elements of the ‘learning process’ approach, were important to the success of the project. During the implementation of the project, however, concern for farmer input and participation should have been incorporated more systematically into the field operations of the regional teams.