Harvest Craft was founded by Dr. Brendon Anthony and Craig Erickson in 2013, while Craig was living in Haiti, to promote what they call the “holistic development” model, designing and implementing food production systems. Haiti suffers from acute food insecurity, the country is one of the least food-secure in the world ranking 104 out of 107 on the Global Hunger Index. In 2018, Harvest Craft set up the Haiti Center for Agroecology (HCA), a research and education institute committed to training local subsistence farmers in agroecological techniques and promoting food sovereignty. Geoffrey serves as Harvest Craft’s Chief Development Officer.
Geoffrey spoke at One Young World’s Environmental Summit in 2016. He had just left university and found the atmosphere at One Young World inspiring through the passion displayed by the delegates and the resourcefulness of their projects. Geoffrey made several important connections at the Summit, which have continued to influence his learning, leadership, motivation, and long-term vision. Over 10 years of planning went into the HCA, and while the focus was initially purely educational it has since also turned into a place for different farming communities to come together.
The HCA has directly impacted more than 400 subsistence farmers and their families. The farmers have seen their revenues increase by between 30% and 75% on average, and more than 90% of participants have reported increased crop yields and sales from implementing the HCA’s agroecological training. Around 90% of programme participants also compost waste and use this on their farms, while 60% use organic pest management techniques to help ensure soil health. Harvest Craft distributes 30-50,000 vegetable seedlings annually to participating farmers, and it has also partnered with the Eden Reforestation Projects to build a nursery of fruit trees as well. It has begun an internship programme which has so far trained two local agronomy students.
"Being around people at One Young World who are so passionate and like-minded, and doing things in their projects that I had never heard of, was very inspiring. And I still carry that with me today. Life can drag you down but I always look back at the Summit and feel motivated"
