Projet Madian-Salagnac, quarante ans d’appui aux dynamiques paysannes

oleh: Michel Brochet

Format: Article
Diterbitkan: Institut Veolia Environnement 2013-12-01

Deskripsi

In the 1970s, the Madian-Salagnac project began forming multi-skilled facilitators to run outreach courses in agricultural techniques in rural southern Haiti. When the limitations of this approach became apparent, the project’s agronomists instead directly addressed groups of farmers (referred to by their social standing, as personnages or citoyens), building up a new pedagogical relationship based on observing the farmers’ practices and discussing their strategies with them. This opening-up to dialogue was reinforced by work in video-communication led by Gerald Belkin, which gave farmers an opportunity to talk about their lives without any intermediary. At the same time, the Salagnac Center trained many generations of students from the Agronomy Faculty in fieldwork studies. Meanwhile, with the support of university training and research institutions, numerous research-training actions were carried out, which shed light in particular on the constraints facing farmers, and on their lack of financial availability. Starting in 1980, the Salagnac Center set up a project to build 200 family cisterns and community rainwater collectors (impluviums) on the Rochelois plateau. These investments, and the way in which they were implemented, have generated numerous social improvements and led to the development of new vegetable and staple crops.