A Holistic Approach

Partnering with farming families in Central America, our programs have profound and cascading impacts on improving family nutrition, income diversification, regional food security, landscape restoration, carbon drawdown, and more. 

Our work contributes to many of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals, including:

five areas of impact

impact stories

LORENZO RODRIGUEZ: IT'S NEVER TOO LATE

“At the beginning, it was a little hard, because my father raised me to do slash-and-burn farming. Trying to change my approach was not easy,” says Lorenzo Rodriguez, a 67-year-old farmer who lives in Calle Larga, Panama. He was introduced to Sustainable Harvest International through his daughter, who also participates in our program. He was so impressed with his daughter’s gardens he decided to try it himself. His field trainer has trained him on everything from soil conservation techniques to small business. He now grows corn, beans, sugarcane, cucumbers, peppers, and tomatoes. His yield is much higher than it was before he started with Sustainable Harvest International—and, he doesn’t have to destroy tropical forests in order to eat.

LINDA CARRANZA'S DEHYDRATED GOODS

A lot of women in Honduras start businesses. But there's something different about Linda Carranza's Dehydrated Goods - she uses sustainable farming methods to grow the ingredients. With the help of a Sustainable Harvest International field trainer, Linda is innovating on the standard business model. Now, her with her additional income, she can afford to better support her family. As a woman in agriculture and in business, she is overcoming barriers and promoting gender equality.

MARCEDA PAAU’S GARDEN

In Marceda Paau’s garden in San Benito Poite, Belize you can find everything—sugarcane, pineapples, carrots, cabbage, cucumber, pumpkin, string beans, and more. Before she began working with Sustainable Harvest International, “I didn’t have any of this and I didn’t know how to do it,” Marceda says. A hard worker, Marceda worked tirelessly on her garden by herself until her family recognized how her hard work was paying off and decided to help her. “In every village where Sustainable Harvest International works, the concepts are spreading,” says Marceda.

Monitoring + evaluation

We measure our impact through a robust monitoring and evaluation system, backed by the best mobile technology in the field. Thanks to a partnership with Akvo, SHI field trainers use tablets to collect and report accurate data. We measure our impact against a set of indicators for each of our five impact areas. We collect data at pre-determined stages, starting with a baseline and ending with an impact evaluation.

Learn about our partnership with Akvo.

Regenerated land includes (but is not limited to): preserved land, agroforestry systems, agro-ecological plots, and reforested areas.

Organic vegetable gardens, grain silos, irrigation systems, and improved chicken coops are all part of SHI’s efforts to significantly improve regional food sovereignty, providing access to healthy and diverse food for partnering families and their communities.

Wood-conserving stoves, water filtration systems, and composting latrines are some of the climate resilient technologies SHI promotes to improve participants’ health and sanitation while also protecting the environment. Watch this video to learn more about how SHI’s improved cookstoves reduce firewood consumption and smoke inhalation by nearly fifty percent.

In addition to personalized technical assistance for partnering farmers, we offer group workshops open to the public. Workshops provide training on nutrition, small business development, organic fertilizers, environmental stewardship, and more, amplifying our impact many times over.

OUR RESEARCH