Education and RAIN at BF

Greetings Bona Fide friends and supporters,

This last week and half saw a visit from ten students from the University of Vermont who completed a 3 credit course on agroforestry at BF. Instructors Chris Shanks and Mike Blazewicz were on hand to utilize the living classroom that Finca Bona Fide has become. We were fortunate to have the rains fall during the course and we were able to do some plantings as well as see cover crops we planted spring up. The processes observed between dry and wet season was informative for the students as was the different ages and concentrations of different trials systems on the farm. BF was happy to work with local restaurants and local lodging options to spread out the funds we brought to the island and we enjoyed the hospitality of Doña Coco and Doña Inez in their tropical homegarden systems. Bona Fide is excited to work with the University of Vermont further and to offer up more courses to expand our educational offerings as part of the vision for our work.

The beginning of the wet season has been early this year, it actually began to green up in mid April which is abnormal to say the least. Rain for the last week has been key to putting all winter wet season plans into action. Seeds are sprouting everywhere and volunteers are busy rescuing seedlings and getting them potted up for plantings. We have already planted pejibaye or peach palm to replace those damaged or killed by rats in the dry season, one of our main cover crops, pigeon pea has been sowed in the dry times and now it has already sprouted, literally many thousands of pigeon pea are growing all around the farm, at this time of the year, the growth is fast and daily. Amazing to see.


Best to all,

Chris Shanks
Co-Director Project Bona Fide
Chris@projectbonafide.com