Just Coffee Cooperative

The Gardeners of Eden East Timor Seed Project is calling for support for its 2009 program. You can help by sending seeds or making donations. With global food stockpiling and rising prices, Timorese families need to renovate their traditional farming systems organically and address the annual hunger and nutrition gaps, as well as invest carefully in other crops (forestry and small-commercial farming systems) sufficient to support trading. To do this, they need seeds, tools, supplies, and training.

The Gardeners of Eden East Timor Seed Project continues to have successes with groups who have received in small commercial quantities of seed at six locations in Ainaro. All locations report good germination rates and we have avoided distributing seeds of crops that people are unfamiliar with. There has not yet been direct contact with the groups in Ainaro that were contacted through the Ministry of Agriculture but we hope that there will be in the near future; Such are the difficulties of maintaining regular communications with groups in the mountains. Carrots have all performed exceptionally well, as have silverbeet, some of the open hearted lettuce varieties, rocket, zucchini (summer and winter squash) and the more traditional crops of the area like cabbages and kale. In the next phase of the project we would like to start to concentrate on groups that are ready to move on from simple seed saving to seed multiplication. There are many groups that want seeds and not presently enough seed to go round.

Greetings!

I write today to inform you of the Just Coffee delegations that I will be leading this 2008 year. If you are interested in joining one of these upcoming delegations or would like to customize one specifically for your group, please contact me directly at: colleen (AT) justcoffee (DOT) net. Don't wait long though as some trips fill up quickly. Thank you.

Earlier this week myself along with members of Fundasaun Hari'i Au Metan (FHAM-Foundation to Raise up the Black Bamboo, a local Timorese NGO who sponsors the Gardeners of Eden East Timor Seed Project), Hector Hill, Merita Alves, Luis Alves, and Maun Leonardo, took a trip to visit Grupo Agrikultura Mau-Roma Horaiqiq south of Maubisse in the district of Ainaro.

The 2007 year ended difficultly for this vegetable and coffee producing group as they lost an investment in potatoes of over $1000 due to giant winds and torrential rains in December. Sr. Batista Tilman, the coordinator of the group, also suffered the death of his five month old baby in November.
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