A Network of Living Systems
Across six properties in the Cap Rouge mountains, Grown in Haiti has established a network of regenerative systems at different stages of development. Each one is a living landscape. Each one is teaching us something. Together they form the most comprehensive picture we have of what regeneration actually looks like over time in this specific part of Haiti.
What We Have Built
Our regenerative systems span six properties across the Cap Rouge mountains, ranging from roughly a third of an acre to just over one acre. They sit at different elevations, on different soil types, and in different microclimates. Some have been in development for several years and are already producing food, generating seed material, and serving as training environments. Others are newer and still in early establishment phases.
No two systems are identical. Each one was designed in response to the specific conditions of its site, the slope, the rainfall pattern, the existing vegetation, the needs of the family or community connected to that land. That diversity is intentional. It is how we learn what works across the full range of conditions that define this landscape.
This work connects directly to our farmer support program and our expanding monitoring and research capacity. What we observe across these six properties shapes every recommendation we make to the farming families we work with across the region.
The Properties at a Glance
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Just Over One Acre — Newest System
Currently being established at 835 meters elevation. This is our most intentionally research-focused site, designed to test agroforestry layouts, species combinations, and succession strategies in a systematic way. It will serve as the primary field research and training environment as it matures.
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Two Properties at Roughly Half an Acre
These mid-sized systems are at intermediate stages of development. Canopy layers are establishing, food production is beginning, and soil health indicators are improving. They serve as both demonstration environments and active living seed banks generating material for the nursery.
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Two Properties at Roughly a Third of an Acre
Smaller in scale but significant in what they demonstrate. These systems show what regenerative agroforestry looks like when established on more modest landholdings, which reflects the reality of most farming families in the Cap Rouge mountains.
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One Established System
The most developed system in the network. This property has been in regenerative management for several years and is already producing across multiple canopy layers. It serves as the clearest evidence of what these systems become over time and is a primary reference point for farmers and visitors learning about the work.
What These Systems Are Designed to Do
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Refine Agroforestry Layouts
Testing different row spacings, treeline placements, and canopy configurations across multiple sites to identify what works best at different elevations and conditions in southern Haiti.
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Test Species Combinations
Observing how different native, food-bearing, and support species interact within the same system across different properties, which combinations thrive together and which create competition or imbalance.
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Study Succession Strategies
Tracking how each system evolves over time as pioneer species establish, canopy layers develop, and the landscape moves through natural stages of ecological succession.
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Observe Soil Regeneration
Documenting how soil health changes as each system matures, measuring organic matter accumulation, compaction reduction, and biological activity using our research grade monitoring equipment.
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Develop Training Methodologies
Using the systems as living classrooms where farmers, youth, and visiting practitioners can observe regenerative principles in action at different stages of development and learn through direct experience on the land.
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Strengthening Ecological Monitoring
Building a detailed observational record across all six properties over time, contributing to a growing body of knowledge about regenerative agroforestry in Caribbean mountain ecosystems.
Why Multiple Sites Matter
A single demonstration system can show what is possible. A network of systems at different stages and scales shows what is real. By working across six properties simultaneously, we are able to observe how regenerative agroforestry performs under different conditions, at different elevations, on different soil types, and over different timeframes.
This multi-site approach also reflects the actual diversity of landholding in the Cap Rouge mountains. Most farming families do not have access to large parcels of land. By demonstrating regenerative systems at a third of an acre, half an acre, and just over an acre, we are showing what is achievable at the scale that most people in this community actually work with.
What We Have Built
These systems did not begin with blueprints imported from somewhere else. They grew out of over a decade of observation, experimentation, and lived knowledge accumulated by Sidney-Max Etienne and the farming families of Cap Rouge. The elevations, the species, the spacing decisions, the succession strategies, all of it is informed by what this specific landscape has already been teaching us.
The experimental network is not a departure from that knowledge. It is a formalization of it. A way of taking what has been learned through practice and creating the conditions to learn even more precisely and share it more effectively with the farmers and communities we work alongside.
Impact So Far
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Six Properties, Six Stages of Regeneration
From newly established to several years into development, our network of systems captures the full arc of what regenerative agroforestry looks like over time. Each property is a chapter in the same long story of land coming back to life.
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A Living Seed Bank Across the Network
Every system in the network generates seeds and cuttings that flow directly into our nursery and out to the farming families we support. The more these systems mature, the more planting material becomes available to the wider community.
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Multiple Microclimates, One Body of Knowledge
Because our systems span different elevations, slopes, and soil types, the knowledge we generate is applicable across the full range of conditions found in the Cap Rouge mountains. What works at 835 meters informs decisions at lower elevations, and vice versa.
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The Next Generation of Training
As these systems mature they will collectively become the primary field training environment for our education and community training programs. Farmers, youth, and visiting practitioners will be able to observe regeneration at every stage of development across a single connected landscape.
Part of a Larger Vision
This network of regenerative systems is one piece of a larger institutional direction. Together with our monitoring and research work and our farmer support program, it represents Grown in Haiti's evolution from a restoration effort into a community-anchored regenerative institution, one that generates knowledge, shares it freely, and keeps it rooted in the realities of Haitian land and life.
Establishing and maintaining these systems takes sustained investment.
Your support helps us plant, observe, document, and share what we are learning from this land, so that the knowledge generated across these six properties can reach far beyond Cap Rouge.