Mark Hare
c/o MPP
Delmas 39 #17
Port au Prince
Haiti
Email: Mark Hare

Mark Hare now serves in Haiti with the MPP, which in Haitian Creole stands for “Mouvman Peyizan Papay,” or “Farmer’s Movement of Papaye.” Founded more than 30 years ago, the MPP started out as a from a farmer’s organization with just a few members and has transformed itself into a grassroots movement of thousands of community groups located throughout Haiti. It includes about 20 farming cooperatives.

Mark's blog has many photos about his life and work in Haiti.

Mark’s work with MPP is to reinforce their agricultural work with what he learned during his six years at Rancho Ebenezer in Nicaragua (to which he was assigned as a long-term volunteer) including the diversification and integration of small animal production with vegetables and other crops in the small areas surrounding each family’s home.

Mark and the 13 young men and one woman working with him are developing a small area of land on which they are managing goats, chickens, and California red worms, planting living barriers using leguminous tree species, establishing fruit and forage tree species, and producing large quantities of vegetables, many of which are produced in old tires raised about three feet off the ground to be out of the reach of the neighbors’ marauding goats and chickens. The crew has named the project, “The Road to Life Yard,” which is located in the MPP’s national training center.

Mark and his crew also do workshops to train people in the techniques they are developing and provide extension and follow-up for some of the local projects. Much of the funding for this comes from the Presbyterian Hunger Program.

The crew Mark leads is also focusing on the moringa tree, which has highly nutritional edible leaves. Besides growing several hundred moringa trees in the Road to Life Yard, the crew is promoting moringa as a low-cost source of protein and other nutrients among the visitors and participants at the training center. The crew has also begun producing moringa leaf powder, a simple and inexpensive diet supplement that has proven extremely effective in reducing malnutrition in a number of West African countries. Moringa leaf powder is also being used effectively in the outreach programs of W.I.S.H, the West Indies Self Help program located on the Haitian island of La Gonave, where Mark and one of the crew members received training.

(Photo album 2007)
(Photo album)

Letters from
Mark Hare

• January 2009
• September 2008
• March 2008
• December 2007
• November 2007
• April 2007
• May 2006
• January 2006
• September 2005
• June 2005
• April 2005
• December 2004
• September 2004
• August 2004
• July 2004
• May 2004
• April 2004
• December 2003
• April 2003
• December 2002
• July 2002
• September 2001 (2)
• September 2001 (1)
• May 2001
• February 2001
• December 1999
• October 1999
• May 1999
• October 1998

Prior to Mark’s move to Haiti in April 2004, he served as a PC(USA) long-term international volunteer from May 1998 to April 2004, living and working at Ebenezer Center outside of Niquinohomo, Nicaragua, where he served as a specialist in community development, soil management, and agroforestry.

Mark's work at the Ebenezer Center, which focused on helping farmers and their families integrate small livestock production with sustainable management of soil and land resources, prepared him well for his work with MPP. Mark and his crew at Ebenezer Center had six acres of steep, highly eroded land. After applying their techniques, they produced large quantities of high-quality forage for small, experimental lots of goats, rabbits, and chickens.

It was at Ebenezer Center that Mark got experience working with nitrogen-fixing leguminous vines, shrubs, and trees and recuperating eroded soils. They used manure from the goats and rabbits in the production of California red worms, which facilitate the cycling of nutrients back into the soil. With virtually no livestock experience when he began, Mark says the work both challenged and blessed him in many unexpected ways.

From February 1997 to January 1998, Mark was an international volunteer with the PC(USA) in Haiti. He worked from 1991 to 1996 in various teaching and research positions with the Michigan State University Department of Forestry. He served as a Botany Biological Technician for the United States Fish and Wildlife on the Alaskan Arctic Coast during the summer of 1991. From December 1987 through June 1990 he worked as a Peace Corps volunteer in the Natural Resource Program in the Dominican Republic.

Mark holds a B.A. in environmental studies with a focus in international development from Warren Wilson College in the Asheville area of western North Carolina. He has a master’s in forestry from Michigan State University. In 1992, he was selected by the Organization for Tropical Studies to participate in a summer field course in Costa Rica on managed tropical ecosystems.

Mark is a member of Amesville Presbyterian Church in Amesville, Ohio, which is part of the Scioto Valley Presbytery. He stays in close touch with his church, keeping the congregation informed of his activities as a mission worker with the PC(USA).

Birthday: December 9