Christmas is here!
Christmas is celebrated all over the world, including Haiti. This holiday season is special for most Haitians. Even the less fortunate celebrate with the little resources they have. Haitians celebrate by decorating their houses and Christmas trees, eating cake and drinking kremas (a special Haitian drink), going to midnight mass, staying up all night and going to midnight mass, and eating pumpkin soup on New Year’s Day.
Christmas is celebrated in the big cities, and also in the small communities and villages where MFK works with peanut farmers. It’s been a very difficult year for all Haitians in Haiti with many crises, but when Christmas arrives, it’s another spirit. People are getting ready to celebrate and are thankful for another holiday season.
The MFK Farmer training program will take a break during this moment and will resume in early January of 2022. We would like to thank all of MFK’s peanut farmers for a very fruitful year. These farmers work hard year-round to provide peanuts to the factory to produce our peanut butter medicines, and more importantly, these farmers are working to have meals available on everyone’s table during the Holiday. Without the hard work of these farmers, many holiday traditions in their families could not be possible.
A lot happened this year within our Agriculture program! Despite all the constraints this year, Haitian peanut farmers were able to provide approximately 100 metric tons of peanuts, which is a record for MFK’s farmer network. MFK was also able to train 45 farmers and indirectly impact another 200 farmers throughout the year in 2021. MFK Ag is also working closely with local universities to provide valuable internships to young professionals throughout the year, with 10 students spending time and gaining valuable experience with MFK. Three imported peanuts varieties were selected by MFK after experimenting with small plots of different varieties will be introduced. Our mission for 2022 does not change– we would like to keep reaching out to the peanut farmers in the most secluded places to train them so they can provide not only better quality of peanuts, but increase their production systematically. We will lead awareness campaigns against aflatoxins in the communities, support agricultural students and universities, and help farmers with access to tools and resources.
Everything we accomplished this year would not have been possible without the help of so many generous people. On behalf of MFK, we thank all of our donors who contribute to making our different programs succeed. You may not realize this, but your generosity is making a large impact on the lives of Haitian farmers. We wish you a Merry Christmas and a happy new year.
