You may recall that about two months ago, a good donor sent us two 50-pound sacks of millet seeds to trial for our chicken feed project to help remote villages support free-range chickens for eggs and meat.

Yesterday, Wilner and his team harvested the first of the trial millet.  It seems to have been a great success!  See these pictures showing the good crop of millet, the harvest, and the seeds collected to ensure future planting.

From this one donation of seeds, we will be able to provide millet seeds to poor, remote villages to grow stands of millet for their free-ranging chickens to supplement their feed from foraging. In addition, we are trying to find ways that families can have animal protein from local chicken varieties, but in ways that require very little inputs.

They cannot afford expensive coop structures or purchased products for raising the chickens. Remote families often have chickens that run free, but there are almost no natural food sources for them, and the people have no money to buy prepared feed from stores. This project will let them grow millet and harvest enough seeds for the next planting but leave the rest of the crop standing for the chickens to forage for their own food.

We gave some of the donated trial seeds to Farmer John to grow in a different method from Wilner’s trial at the Agricultural Training Center. Wilner’s trial was planted in rows as if it were a row crop. Farmer John’s seed was broadcast in a larger space.  We will soon compare the results so we can give the best advice to the poor families who deserve our help as they strive for their own sustainability.

This is helping Haitians to help themselves provide food for life.  God bless you for supporting our sustainability projects.

Rad Hazelip, Assistant Executive Director