The following list of animals, seedlings and other materials needed for the programming of the Upland Holistic Development Project, offers a suggested donation amount for each item. The donation amount reflects the cost of producing or purchasing each item, associated transportation expenses as well as costs related to providing training and other technical assistance. All gifts are considered “symbolic” and will be used toward the overall community development programming of UHDP.

Pigs - $100
UHDP offers farmers who’ve received training, and have prepared proper housing and feed, the chance to receive piglets of improved breeds. Given adequate care, these pigs have the potential of doubling the number of piglets per litter, compared to common, less productive breeds and can grow to twice the size in a much shorter length of time. Being adapted to local conditions, these productive breeds can help make backyard pig farming in the mountain villages more profitable, thereby improving the food sufficiency of hilltribe families.

$100 will enable each participating farmer to receive a healthy young pig for her/his backyard enterprise. Those who receive female breeding pigs will return two of the firstborn to either UHDP or to other farm families in their own communities. Families who receive male pigs pay back an agreed upon price once they have earned income from their enterprise.

Catfish Tanks - $75
The current worldwide bird flu epidemic began in Southeast and East Asia in 2003. As a result, governments around the world have begun to crackdown on the backyard production of chickens and other poultry. Although chickens are still widely raised in the UHDP focus area, the uncertainties related to bird flu has led to a curtailment of UHDP involvement in the promotion of backyard chicken production.

However, in lieu of raising chickens, the project has begun to encourage the backyard production of catfish in concrete tanks. During the warmest months of the year (March through October) families can raise a batch of catfish from fingerlings to a edible/marketable size in only three months. This means that a minimum of 2-3 batches of catfish may be produce per year to supplement family nutrition or income on very limited patches of land. Additionally, every 4-7 days, when the water is changed, the nutrient-rich water from the catfish tanks can be used to irrigate and fertilize home vegetable gardens.

Besides new fingerlings, all that’s needed is water, tanks and catfish feed. However, the biggest investments for each participating family are the concrete tiles or the blocks needed to construct the catfish tanks. A $75 gift will help families obtain reduced cost catfish tank materials with which to get started in a productive backyard aquaculture project.

Sets of Livestock Vaccines and Other Medicines - $10 Many families attempting to improve incomes through the production of pigs are capable of improving housing and feeds for their animals. However, the initial cost of vaccines and other medicines can be too expensive for farm budgets, particularly prior to earning income from their backyard livestock enterprises.

So as to equip upland farmers to buy initial sets of needed medicines for their animals, UHDP offers a short-term program that enables qualified needy families to access vaccines and other necessary medicines contingent on farmers attaining adequate housing and feeding standards. All participating farmers are trained and expected to administer preventative vaccinations and other necessary health care for their animals. Each $10 set of medicines will provide an initial boost towards eventual self-sufficiency.

Vegetable Garden Seed Sets - $1.00
Despite challenges such as shade, insufficient water and cramped spaces, home vegetable gardens can enable many poor hilltribe families to produce a variety of nutritious vegetables and create savings from food budgets.

Each $1.00 gift will help the project make available a one-time gift of three different varieties of seeds from which nutritious vegetables can be grown in the gardens of new participating families. Locally adapted vegetable varieties include sweet corn, eggplants, pumpkins, beans, edible gourds and greens. Families may select types that are best suited to the environmental conditions in their home gardens, such as shade-tolerant varieties and viny, climbing vegetables for small spaces. However, in addition to offering seeds purchased in the market, additional emphasis is placed on conserving indigenous vegetable varieties as well.

Shade Cloth for Home Gardens and Nurseries - $30
Backyard gardens and nurseries can offer hilltribe families access to homegrown fruits, vegetables and seedlings. However, for successful production, village home gardens and nurseries must be adequately enclosed so as to protect plants from children and animals.

A gift of $30 dollars will enable UHDP to make rolls of shade cloth, for enclosing garden and nursery spaces, available to village partners at reduced costs.

Backyard Mushroom Farms – $40
As almost half of the families in the UHDP focus area lack farmland, the emphasis on backyard agriculture is very important for many upland families. Besides raising pigs, catfish and vegetables, one other backyard agriculture option is to produce mushrooms. In addition to supplementing family nutrition, mushrooms that are produced on beds of rice straw can provide extra family income during certain times of the year.

A gift of $40 dollars can help the UHDP staff train families in the process of raising mushrooms in their backyards as well as to help make funds available (via micro-finance) with which to purchase both the rice straw and the mushroom spores.

Household Water Storage Tanks - $100
The dry season in northern Thailand is generally 5-7 months long. By the end of the annual drought, the soil is parched and village water systems are often too depleted to supply adequate water for home gardens and backyard nurseries.

So as to increase access to water during the driest months, each $100 dollar gift helps UHDP to subsidize a portion of the cost of constructing household water storage tanks. Made from cement tiles, the tanks can store rainwater, harvested from roofs, for dry season use, thereby increasing the opportunity for productive dry season nurseries and gardens.

Sets of Perennial Garden Seedlings - $30
Where excessive shade, poor soils and dry conditions make conventional home gardening difficult, the use of food-producing trees offers the best hope for increasing hilltribe food sufficiency. Combinations of common tropical fruits and vegetable-producing trees (i.e., guava, moringa and papaya) as well as native forest plants (i.e., edible figs, acacias, rattans) can provide a year-round variety of fruits, shoots and vegetables that help sustain hilltribe families even during the driest months.

A $30 gift assists UHDP in producing and delivering home agroforest garden sets, each comprised of 30-seedlings, that hilltribe families can purchase at reduced costs. Each seedling set can result in a compact, diversified, multi-layered home agroforest garden that will provide years of improved family nutrition.

Sets of Seedlings for Family Agroforests and Diversified Farms - $50
With limited farmland, in many hilltribe communities the only hope of increasing crop production area is by actually farming in the forest. This means employing agroforestry techniques that allow select crops, such as tea or coffee, to be produced in a forest environment. But to a greater degree, many other non-timber forest products (rattan, bamboo, spices) can be grown as well, whether in lush jungles or in recovering degraded forests. Additionally, as hilltribe fields in UHDP project communities are usually quite small, diversifying crop production is an important step towards making upland agriculture more sustainable. Besides upland rice, corn and beans commonly grown on hilltribe farms, the inclusion of additional orchard and forest crops helps reduce the risk of total crop failure and boosts overall production.

A set of 25 – 75 seedlings (depending on the species) can be made available to upland farmers at reduced costs with every $50 gift. Diverse plantings of crops such as pineapples, tea, rattan, forest pepper and fruit trees will help to spread crop production throughout most of the year as opposed to only few months associated with less integrated cropping systems.

Household Latrines - $100
Nine years ago, very few families in UHDP project communities had access to a latrine. Fortunately, many households now have their own toilets. However, there’s much more work to be done so as to enable all families to increase the sanitary conditions around their homes.

A budget of only $100 helps UHDP to subsidize a portion of the cost of materials (and delivery) needed to construct a latrine with a simple water-seal toilet and concrete tile septic tank. In building the structure of the latrine, families may use any materials they can afford, whether concrete block or split-bamboo sections for the walls in addition to tile, tin or grass thatch roofs.

Contributions Mailing Address:
Cooperative Baptist Fellowship
P.O. Box 101699
Atlanta, GA 30392-1699