Who We Are
Our organization, Helen's Daughters, grew out of the belief that "no country has come out of poverty without having an inclusive agriculture transformation agenda that makes smallholder farmers more competitive." We are from the small eastern Caribbean island of St. Lucia (the island is coined the Helen of the West Indies- hence our name Helen's Daughters), that is mostly known as a tourist destination, but fairly little is known about our agricultural history- we were once the largest exporter of bananas and coffee and had a thriving agricultural system. However, in the last thirty years, as St. Lucia's focus diverted from agriculture to tourism, we have become a net food importer, with a food import bill of over $360 million and over 35% of the rural population live in poverty. Our aim is to give farmers, particularly rural women farmers, the appropriate tools, skills and training to increase the production of foods that are consumed on island but particularly in the hotel sector.
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The Problem
St. Lucia was once considered the banana capital of the Caribbean when the United Kingdom had established trade relations with preferential treatment for Eastern Caribbean banana producers. For the next 50 years, bananas became the single most economically viable commodity in St. Lucia - to the point that bananas were referred to as ‘green gold’. In that regard, agriculture transformed the lives of rural folk and banana farming enabled farmers to buy houses, vehicles and invest in their children’s education.
Once preferential treatment ended and Caribbean bananas had to compete with Latin American bananas (backed by multinational corporations), the farming class that had essentially held up the economy for more than four decades was obliterated. Agriculture has never been the same and most farmers now live below the poverty line- which would equate to about one-fifth of St. Lucia’s working population.
A large majority of this population are small women-owned businesses based on traditional agricultural models i.e. selling produce in local markets. In order for these female farmers to qualify to receive financial assistance from banks or become trading partners with local businesses such as supermarkets or hotels, requires large-scale farming- a model which is generally not possible for a local female farmer. Moreover, there is a tendency to believe that women are not involved in the agricultural sector when in fact they form an integral part of it.
Now that the tourism industry is the main driver of our economy; there is a possibility to enable the agricultural sector to support the tourism sector, however this is not the case. In fact, we have a food import bill of about $360M - which most of our hotels contribute to (with one hotel importing $10-$15 million dollars on nine crops that can be grown in St. Lucia). By investing in rural women and providing a way to access the tourism market, we could reduce St. Lucia’s overall import bill and also address inequalities in employment in the rural sector.
Solution
Most of the fruits and vegetables that are imported by hotels can be grown on island, and with a bustling tourism industry boasting over 1.1 million visitors this year alone, the hotel industry can be a big contributor to local farmers. Shifting to local supply could be life-changing for the more than one-fifth of the working population that are active in agriculture. Local farmers need help to understand how to plan for and meet the different demands of international clientele, as well as to update their agricultural practices to benefit from new approaches.
Our social enterprise solution uses technology to fill the gaps in the agricultural-food-tourism supply system that supports rural women to successfully meet the island's agricultural needs at a competitive level. Three components need to be created to facilitate this agricultural and tourism linkage:
- An information program that updates farmers regularly on market demands, farming needs and weather using a soil sensor that gathers data from each plot of land;
- An integrated voice response system that sends agricultural updates via mobile phone to farmers island-wide;
- A website that allows hoteliers to easily purchase goods from the farmers registered in the program
