Seeds of Hope brochure

Plant seeds of hope in Ukraine.

In rural areas, 1 in 5 families are living in poverty.

Farming practices are 50 years behind the times.

Families need help to tap the potential of their land— and create a more hopeful future for their children.

Growth.

Potential.

Help 2,000 more farmers build a better life for their children.

Ukraine continues to struggle with the transition to a market economy. There is a growing poverty gap between cities and rural areas. Small farmers can barely support their families. But it doesn’t have to be this way. The warm climate, long growing season, and rich soil can support thriving farms and sustainable operations.

MEDA’S GOAL

6000

Our goal is to help 5,500 farming families by 2013.

5000 4000 3000

By 2011, MEDA’s work in Ukraine had helped 3,500 farmers.

2000 1000 0

2009

2010

2011

2012

2013

MEDA’s five-year project in Ukraine is gaining ground, but the need is still great

Help them realize their potential

Already, our work has empowered 3,500 farmers to start growing more profitable crops and find better markets. We are focusing on smallholder farmers, including women and marginalized groups, because we want to encourage a more equitable farming sector where everyone can participate and benefit.

• Access to better markets

By 2013, our goal is to empower 2,000 more small farmers to build a better life for their families. Join us today—help make it happen! www.growthpotential.org

Ease the burden of poverty in Crimea and Zaporizhzhia—ancestral Mennonite homelands—by giving hardworking men and women the tools, training, and opportunity they need. You can help provide:

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• Modern greenhouses to lengthen the growing seasons -----------------------------------

• Cold storage to keep produce fresh post-harvest -----------------------------------

“Again and again, I heard from folks [who] were astounded by the way farmers could work together, ship crops together, trust each other.” –Allan Sauder, MEDA president, on the Ukraine farmers’ reaction to what they saw in Canada

• Seeds and plants for crop diversity ----------------------------------------

• Enhanced co-operation and trust between farmers ----------------------------------------

On a MEDA learning trip to Canada this spring, Ukraine farmers discovered a simple, yet essential, business factor: trust.

In post-Soviet Ukraine, there is deep reluctance to collaborate. So the farmers on the MEDA trip could hardly believe that farmers here would leave a tractor unattended in the fields overnight ... that they would wait 30 days for payment from a buyer ... that they would share information and tools so freely. MEDA’s work in the Ukraine specifically aims to foster trust and cooperation among farmers.

This change in attitude will go a long way toward improving business opportunities, and strengthening communities, too.

“I want to be a professional in strawberry growing” –Sergey Krasnokutsky

As a participant in MEDA’s seminars and educational trips — and with access to new technology and markets — Sergey Krasnokutsky is convinced his income as a strawberry producer will be much greater than what he earned growing vegetables over the past few years.

“This year I had my first strawberry harvest,” says Sergey, who farms in Zaporizhzhia. “It was small, but I know I have made the right choice and my new business will bring me more income.

“With the assistance of the [MEDA] project, I feel that my new business is more secure – it’s much better than trying to do it alone.”

Please give today. With our help, another 2,000 farmers can build a better life for their children.

Your gift will multiply five times to empower more farming families! $100 becomes $500 to help a farmer build a greenhouse to lengthen the growing season for tomatoes and cucumbers.

$250 becomes $1,000 to help a woman farmer, through the project’s Gender Innovation Fund, gain access to tools, seeds and seedlings to start growing grapes and strawberries.

$500 becomes $2,500 to help a woman famer buy muchneeded equipment that gives a boost to her small farming business.

Mennonite Economic Development Associates

1-800-665-7026 www.meda.org