CCFP - Catholic Center for Agriculture and the Environment

The CCFP is the only center in Haiti dedicated to the Catholic principle of loving and caring for God's creation. The center is dedicated to the principles set forth in the 1991 Catholic Conference of Bishops "Renewing the Earth" documents.

"We are all part of God's Creation -- we live as a human family. The whole of Creation is everyone's heritage. All equally created by God, called to share the goods and the beauty of the one world, human beings are called to enter into a solidarity of universal dimensions, 'a cosmic fraternity' animated by the very love that flows from God.... We must learn again to live in harmony, not only with God and with one another, but with Creation itself," said Archbishop Renato Martino at a 1992 UN conference in Rio.

In 1998, Father Gerard Dormevil and Bishop Emmanuel constant shared with us their dream of creating a Catholic center dedicating to renewing the Haiti environment and restoring dignity back into the vocation of Agriculture. This dream is now a reality.

The CCFP promotes massive environmental education efforts through "ecological weekend workshops" that train middle and high school students on things like reforestation, recycling and composting, proper garbage and waste management, and the dignity of farming and vocations in Agriculture. These workshops helped spark a massive reforestation effort and the creation of tree nurseries and the planting of more than 100,000 trees in the Gonaives and Bassen regions.

The CCFP is home to PRODIB - a peasant cooperative with nearly 300 members who pool resources and benefit from our irrigation and farming assistance. Farmers in the cooperative pay for diesel to power generators that pump irrigation water to their fields from our large cisterns.

The CCFP is multi-purpose and used for Diocesan retreats, formation sessions and particularly training seminars for the promotion of agriculture.

Major Goals & Needs

  • Construct management residence and depot;
  • Install 105 mini irrigation & drinking water houses;
  • Produce a seed farm for highest yield cash crops and distribute to 500 farmers & plant 30,000 fruit trees in our nurseries;
  • Repair all cement canals and increase irrigation perimeters to help 50 new farmers;
  • Create a chicken farm with 2,000 baby chickens.