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By Lilla Marigza*
3:00 P.M. ET Jan. 12, 2012
Eighty-nine-year-old Hank Garwick has a heart for mission work.
He has made 21 trips to India and 19 trips to Haiti. For more than a
decade, Garwick has been the driving force behind a project of the Hennepin Avenue United Methodist Church in Minneapolis, a congregation that helps find sustainable ways to feed people who do not know where they will get their next meal.
Members of Hennepin Avenue Church maintain partnerships with
congregations in Russia, India, Africa and Haiti. The range of outreach
projects includes training rural farmers, feeding schoolchildren and helping agricultural engineers gain advanced degrees.
Now they are focusing attention on breadfruit. Garwick
believes breadfruit could help Haiti, the poorest country in the
northern hemisphere, to turn a native crop into a storable food source.
Breadfruit
is one of the highest-yielding food plants in the world. It is a
staple in many tropical regions where the green dimpled fruit — with a
taste and texture similar to potatoes — is picked firm and roasted or
boiled. Ripened, the fruit takes on a sweet, custard-like consistency
and is eaten in small quantities as a dessert. Hennepin Avenue members
believe this miracle product can help countries like Haiti produce
much-needed food and jobs.
The problem with breadfruit is its limited shelf life. In Haiti,
trees produce two crops a year in spring and fall, but an
estimated 40 percent to 60 percent of the fruit goes to waste
because there is simply more than people or animals can eat. When ripe,
fruits must be consumed within 24 to 72 hours before the flesh breaks
down and is no longer appetizing.
Garwick sees a way to prolong the fruit’s shelf life. He said
breadfruit could be milled into flour with a shelf life of many years.
He has a collection of shredded breadfruit and flour that he has kept
for a decade and said, “So far, it’s OK. It seems to be resistant to
rodents and insects.”
Hank Garwick
That means this non-perishable food staple could have a dramatic impact on a country where the World Food Program estimates that up to 40 percent of children suffer from chronic malnutrition.
Deirdre Garvey chairs Hennepin’s Haiti outreach committee. She has
seen children in Haiti eat their only meal each day at a food program
supported by her church. In nine mission trips to Haiti, Garvey also
has seen mothers use an old remedy. “You’ll hear a lot of proverbs in
Haiti about a taste of salt,” Garvey said. “In Haiti, the typical way
to have your children go to bed hungry is to put a pinch of salt under
their tongue.”
A peanut butter factory
Hennepin Avenue’s work in Haiti began in 1994. The church sent
members to establish a connection with St. Martin Methodist Church near
the seaside slums of Port-au-Prince. Over the years, the partnership
helped build a library, expand the St. Martin complex and launch a
successful community bank in the capital city. One of the most
successful ventures was a peanut butter factory that created jobs and a
nutritional food for street vendors to sell.
In 1996, Garwick enlisted the help of engineers with Compatible Technology International or CTI,
a non-profit of which Garwick is a past executive director. Garwick
recalled that Inette Durandis, with the committee on development
for the Haitian Methodist Church, sought help for Haiti’s farmers. “If
we could make breadfruit a cash crop, it would be a godsend,” Durandis told a CTI publication.
Garwick worked on a similar project in India that turned fresh
potatoes destined to rot in the fields into dried potato chips that
were highly marketable.
In the steps leading up to creating breadfruit flour, two men shred the “potato-like” flesh of the breadfruit.
Experiments began in Haiti by processing small batches of dried
breadfruit pulp through the same grinder used to make peanut butter.
The results produced flour that could be used to make cookies and
flatbreads. The problem was how to get Haitians to try the product. At
the time, wheat flour in favorite brands was readily available in
Haiti, so people had little interest in trying the innovative new local
flour. The idea never caught on.
A 2002 grant from the United Methodist Board of Global Ministries
helped development. Trials in the church kitchen in Minneapolis turned
breadfruit flour into biscuits, pancakes, cereals and snack foods.
“We were the guinea pigs,” Garvey said, remembering the
cereal products, in particular, were pretty good. “There was a
peanut-flavored one and sort of a brown-sugar-cinnamon one. We liked
them all.”
The concept was good and the results palatable, but Garwick’s
attempts to get a mill up and running failed. Garvey said her
understanding is, “every time the (Haitian) government changes, he
loses his funding.”
Rebuilding after the earthquake
The St. Martin Church and the peanut butter factory crumbled to the ground when the 7.0 magnitude earthquake struck Haiti on Jan. 12, 2010. Hennepin Avenue has raised about $35,000 to help rebuilding efforts in Haiti.
Advocates of the project say the time may be right for an innovative
food source like breadfruit flour. More than half the food available
on the island nation is imported. The Haitian government recognizes the
long-term solution in Haiti must include agriculture that will make
the country more self-sustaining. After the earthquake, Garwick again
presented the breadfruit flour idea to Haitian officials and was
promised a government grant to produce breadfruit flour on a large
scale. Once again, the money never came.
A plate of fresh pancakes made with breadfruit flour was made at the Hennepin Avenue United Methodist Church test kitchen.
Now Garwick has a new plan. He estimates that if he could raise
$50,000 from private sources, a large-scale milling operation and
bakery could be opened in Port-au-Prince to turn the flour into food.
The scope of the idea goes far beyond fresh bread and cookies in the
minds of Garwick and the Hennepin Avenue church members who have
worked for so long to see this project become a reality.
Processing an abundant natural resource would mean a cash crop for
farmers, steady employment for men and women in the milling process and
small business opportunities to open bakeries.
Garwick is not giving up. Neither is Garvey, who says, “It’s such a
great idea. I can’t believe it hasn’t happened yet. But when you work
with (developing countries), patience is the first thing you learn.”
*Marigza is a freelance producer in Nashville, Tenn.
News media contact: Fran Coode Walsh, Nashville, Tenn., (615) 742-5470 or newsdesk@umcom.org.
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