Tree Grafting to face Climate Change 

The south-east of Haiti, like many other regions in the Caribbean, is suffering from extreme weather events, such as prolonged periods of drought. In order to adapt to these changes, the Caribbean Resilient Communities project is providing livelihood support to smallholder farmers with activities such as tree grafting. Grafting fruit trees like Mango and Avocado by combining genetic material from two plants helps increase the farmer’s adaptive capacity.  

Selective and strategic grafting has several benefits: it increases quality and quantity of fruit production, can help fight off disease, extend growing seasons, and can make trees more resistant to climatic changes. Therefore, it ultimately helps improve the farmer’s productivity, generate increased income, and achieve greater livelihood resilience.  

Grafting is a simple and efficient technique that allows for rapid results. So far, 10.000 plants have been grafted in the project area. Ecosystem-based adaptation measures such as these resilient agricultural approaches will help create better long-term food security in face of the effects of climate change in the Caribbean.