Lowlands Community Garden Project Launches Appeal
Fact: 99% of all food consumed on St. Maarten is imported and there are around 100,000 people living on our island.
If that fact doesn't concern you, then you may be one of the few people on the island that grows their own food. For the rest of us however, this news should be very troubling, because if and when the container ships stop coming to St. Maarten, we would have a real disaster on our hands.
It wasn't always this way.
Until tourism made an impact on St. Maarten, people here were pretty well self-sufficient, growing crops, fishing and keeping livestock. But in recent years fertile fields and orchards have been left to grow wild or have been built on – just look at the land in Cole Bay, opposite Le Grand Marche, for the latest example of our island being destroyed in the name of development.
Houses don't feed people but community gardens do.
The non-profit organization 'LightWorkersSXM' is addressing this situation. They want to help make St. Maarten self-sufficient by setting up an island wide network of community gardens, run by St. Maarteners for St. Maarteners.
The first project is the 'Lowlands Community Garden', which will provide delicious, local, sustainably-grown, non-GMO produce for the various communities on the island. All of the fresh produce is grown using the latest 'aquaponic' technology, which means that in addition to fruit, vegetables, and herbs they will be growing organic freshwater fish too.
The community garden network will provide food security for all St. Maarteners and will help low-income families, the elderly and children to receive organically grown produce to which they might not other wise have access.
There is an online 'crowdfunding' campaign to raise funds for the project. To watch the video and make a contribution, just go to: www.indiegogo.com/projects/lowlands-community-garden
Alternatively, if you'd want to know more, would like to become a partner, sponsor or would like to volunteer some spare time to help with the project, just go to: www.lowlandscommunitygarden.com or call +1721 5544 4156 or +590 590 87 12 99
The Lowlands Community Garden – Growing With You For St. Maarten.