Joining Forces to Support Resilient Food Systems in Haiti: Acceso, PDL & Groundswell International’s Partnership

By Ronel Lefranc, Haiti Program Coordinator

May 7, 2026 Blog

With the support of the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, Groundswell International, Partenariat pour le Développement Local (PDL), and Acceso, have been working on a 3-year program (April 2024 – March 2027) to strengthen connections between smallholder agroecological farmers and local market access in Haiti. The program is one of the initiatives of the Haiti Food System Alliance (HFSA), a network of 15 organizations working to transform Haiti’s food systems. Together, we are producing results that neither of our organizations could have achieved alone.

PDL and Acceso Technicians in the field in front of an anti-erosive structure they constructed together as part of a training on agroecology. 

Haiti continues to face some of the most severe development challenges in the Western Hemisphere: expanding gang violence, political instability, prolonged drought, and a food security crisis that affects millions. And yet, in many villages across the Central Plateau and northern Haiti, smallholder farmers are planting, learning, organizing, generating income, and building alliances to strengthen resilience and adapt to these challenges.

The Agroecological Farming & Sustainable Market Access program, a collaboration between Groundswell International, Partenariat pour le Développement Local (PDL), and Acceso, supported by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, has been accompanying farmers in this work for the past two years. Despite ongoing challenges, partners accelerated their collaboration in the first quarter of 2026 (January–March) through joint planning, training, and field-level exchanges, delivering real gains for farmers.

Total program results to date (April 2024 – March 2026)

• 7,600+ farmers trained in agroecology (including 660+ youth)
• 3,700+ farmers gained access to quality seeds
• 1,500+ farmers gained access to credit
• 4,000+ farmers linked to formal markets
• $2.9 million in farm income generated

Community & infrastructure Development:

• 53 community seed banks established
• 50+ tree nurseries created
• 92 farmer micro-orchards developed
• 300+ community savings & credit groups formed

The program addresses a persistent gap in Haiti’s food security landscape: too many agricultural projects and NGOs take a fragmented approach, focusing on some elements of agricultural and food systems, for example, strengthening production without ensuring farmers can regenerate their land, access markets, earn stable incomes, and build their organizational capacity to thrive. NGOs tend to bring their own approaches and strengths to this work, limiting opportunities to overcome stubborn challenges.

This initiative is designed to overcome the organizational silos so prevalent in Haiti and to integrate improved agroecological farming with enhanced market access, rooted in the collective capacity of peasant organizations. The three-year goal is to empower over 10,000 farming families in Haiti’s Central Plateau and North departments to sustainably improve their livelihoods, strengthen their food sovereignty, and build lasting resilience to climate and environmental shocks.

Accelerating collaboration to leverage strengths

PDL brings deep experience in strengthening the capacity of peasant organizations and expertise in agroecology, whereas Acceso brings structured market connections and commercial know-how. Bridging these two worlds has been one of the program’s main goals, but it brings inherent challenges. Insecurity in Haiti has limited travel on gang-controlled roads for staff and farmers to visit, learn from each other, and coordinate activities. Agricultural cycles and program timing also limit the windows for training and preparation of farmland. Despite these challenges, from January to March 2026, we deepened the exchanges and collaboration between the program’s implementing partners in Haiti, including through several key learning exchanges and training sessions.

The quarter opened with a yearly coordination workshop, as we have done each year, where all three partners (Groundswell International, PDL, and Acceso) reviewed progress to date, established a joint calendar of activities for the coming year, and aligned on plans for implementation, regular coordination meetings, as well as monitoring, evaluation, and learning. These sessions played an important role in trust and relationship-building, which makes everything else possible.

Market access training: Building PDL’s quality control capacity

One of the most significant activities of the quarter was a two-day market access training for PDL’s team, delivered by Acceso in January 2026. The training aimed at addressing a fundamental gap: PDL’s strength lies in agroecological production support, but formal market linkages that generate stable, predictable income for farmers require an additional set of skills and systems.

The PDL team participating in the training on market access, moderated by Acceso.

The training covered the mechanics of the local agricultural market system, the difference between informal and formal market channels, how to define viable pricing based on real costs (not intuition), and Acceso’s own step-by-step process for working with producers, from seasonal planning to quality control, aggregation, logistics, and payment.

Following the training, PDL’s team came away with a greater understanding of Acceso’s approach, a clearer framework for managing its commercial relationship with Acceso, and the vocabulary to negotiate, plan, and hold each other accountable.

“The training gave us a much better understanding of how sustainable market access works in practice, not just the concepts, but the real differences between informal local market channels and formal ones, and the role of each actor in the chain, from farmers to intermediaries like Madan Sara, 1to institutions like PDL and Acceso, to large buyers and school feeding programs. There were many questions, which show how much the team needed these clarifications. We now have a clearer framework for managing our relationship with Acceso and supporting our farmers more effectively in accessing formal markets.”

—Cantave Jean Baptiste, Executive Director of PDL

“The training was a great opportunity for me to get to know the PDL team better — their aspirations, and the challenges they face in market access. We did exercises that left them with concrete ideas to integrate into their plans for this year. I hope they will be able to innovate in their market access approach, and I look forward to confirming the volumes PDL can supply and sharing our quality control documents with them. This is a really warm team, and it was a great moment.”

—Winnifred Ulysse, Acceso Deputy General manager, Moderator of the training

Assessing needs: PDL technicians visit Acceso farmers

In February 2026, a team of PDL technicians traveled to Acceso’s operational areas, Thomassique and Thomonde, to observe current farming practices, evaluate the potential for introducing agroecological techniques in their program areas, and make concrete recommendations to Acceso on which practices to begin adopting with its farmers.

Through focus groups and direct field observations, PDL’s technicians assessed soil health, erosion risk, production methods, and farmer readiness. The visit focused on developing the technical roadmap for integrating agroecology into Acceso’s farmer support model, a core long-term objective of the program.

Agroecology training for Acceso technicians

After this initial step, PDL organized a training-of-trainers session for Acceso’s field technicians on agroecological practices, specifically soil and water conservation techniques critical to maintaining productivity in Haiti’s increasingly climate-stressed landscape.

The training covered:  

• The theory and practical application of anti-erosive structure-building, adapted to different soil types, slope profiles, and available materials.
• Building, calibrating, and using an A-frame level to identify and mark contour lines, a foundational skill for structuring fields to minimize runoff and erosion.
• Hands-on field practice constructing stone walls and dry-stone check dams for ravine protection.

Participants committed to replicating the training for other Acceso technicians who could not attend, and then to adapting and implementing these practices with Acceso farmers as appropriate during the upcoming planting season. This approach multiplies impact beyond a single training event and allows Acceso technicians to adapt techniques to their farmers’ interests and needs.

Excerpts from “Practical guide to creating an agroecological farm: PDL’s approach to Model Farming,” published in 2025

Training on how to build an A-frame level

From farmer to farmer: Learning about Acceso’s micro-orchards in Thomonde

In March 2026, PDL farmers visited Acceso farmers in Thomonde for an exchange focused on lemon micro-orchards, a practice that combines citrus cultivation, biodiversity, and sustainable income generation for rural Haitian families.  Micro-orchards, developed with high-quality grafted lemon tree seedlings and stock, allow farmers to dedicate a small part of their farmland to develop orchards for lemon production for the local market, where demand is strong.

PDL farmers observed the micro-orchards already established by Acceso farmers, engaging in conversation with Acceso producers about their experiences, and explored pathways to replicate these practices in their own communities. PDL has expressed a strong and growing interest in implementing micro-orchards with its farmers, and this visit helped turn that interest into a concrete action plan. Farmers can assess the advantages and disadvantages of both approaches in their context and adapt or combine them.

💡To integrate high-value trees, Acceso uses a “mosaic” approach, where a patchwork of land uses contributes to biodiversity and economic benefits on a farmer’s land.  PDL typically has worked with farmers to develop an “integrated” approach to agroforestry on the same small plots, resulting in “model agroecological farmers” with high nutrient recycling, reduced reliance on external inputs, and high economic returns and climate resilience.

This farmer-to-farmer exchange in Thomonde is now translating into the development of 15-25 new micro-orchards in PDL communities, and the technical infrastructure to scale further.

PDL farmers observing lemon micro-orchards in Thomonde.

Groundswell International’s role: Coordination for action-learning and impact

Coordinating a program this complex—bringing together two strong partner organizations with different models and cultures, working across multiple regions in one of the world’s most challenging contexts, and focused on learning through action to drive innovation and impact—requires sustained, intentional facilitation. That is the work Groundswell International does best.

In the first quarter of 2026, Groundswell International’s coordination role included:

• Organizing and facilitating the annual coordination workshops and joint planning process.
• Supporting and documenting cross-partner exchanges, the market access training, field visits, and farmer exchanges described above.
• Producing and adapting training materials that facilitate knowledge transfer from PDL to Acceso’s technicians in agroecological practices.
• Documenting lessons learned for sharing with the Haiti Food System Alliance (HFSA) network, WKKF, and wider allies, including a learning document and forthcoming dissemination materials.

Next steps for the program’s third year

Building on the program’s progress to date, and the accelerated momentum at the beginning of 2026, the coming months will focus on:

• Strengthening methodologies and complementarity: Each partner will test how to integrate lessons learned into their programming, while we also strengthen collaboration based on complementary strengths and a division of labor in support of smallholder farmers.
• Expanding agroecology training: Reaching a significantly greater number of farmers with in-field training in sustainable techniques as the new growing season opens.
• Input support for the growing season: Providing quality seeds and credit to boost farmer production during the current agricultural campaign, ensuring farmers have what they need before the planting window closes.
• Agroecology training for Acceso farmers: Acceso technicians trained by PDL this quarter will now replicate that training with their own colleagues and begin introducing agroecological practices directly with Acceso’s farmer network.
• Field-level quality control training by PDL: PDL will train its farmers on quality standards at the farm level, ensuring better produce quality before harvest, reducing post-harvest sorting and processing costs, and ultimately enabling higher sales prices for farmers.
• Expanding formal market linkages: PDL will confirm the produce volumes it can supply to Acceso for the coming season, deepening the commercial collaboration and linking an increasing number of PDL farmers to formal, structured market channels.
• Launching citrus micro-orchards: PDL will begin producing its own graft-support seedlings and follow up with Acceso to receive an initial batch of tree seedlings to establish 15-25 lemon micro-orchards with farmers.
• Documenting and sharing lessons: The team will continue capturing learnings from this collaboration, including what is working, what is not, and what can be replicated, for sharing with the HFSA network, WKKF, Groundswell’s global network, and other allies in the agroecology and food systems space.

Key lessons for practitioners and program officers working in Agroecology

Several key lessons emerged from this collaboration that can help practitioners and program officers improve collaboration and engage in meaningful partnerships to support farmers:

• Collaboration is most effective when organizations bring complementary strengths
• Building trust and strong collaboration requires sustained time and effort
• Meaningful cross-organizational learning depends on ongoing training and exchange at farmer, staff, and management levels; organizations benefit most when they can test, adapt, and apply lessons in their own contexts rather than relying on one-off trainings
• Grounding priorities in farmers’ local realities is essential for effective agroecological transitions
• Community organization and farmer-to-farmer training can create powerful multiplier effects
• With consistent support for action and learning, agricultural programs can build momentum and increase their impact over time

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