Accessibility Tools

Skip to main content

Hugh Locke

Hugh Locke has developed an innovative social business model that allows smallholder farmers to self-finance their contribution to improving food security, combating climate change and empowering women. He is President and co-founder, with agronomist Timote Georges, of the Haiti-based Smallholder Farmers Alliance (SFA). They have successfully implemented a new form of ‘tree currency’ in which 6,000 farmers have significantly increased yields and incomes by planting trees… close to 7 million to date. Farmers plant trees to earn credits that can be exchanged for seeds, tools, organic agricultural training, micro-loans, livestock, access to export markets and a wide range of community services. Hugh is President of Impact Farming, the SFA’s international affiliate that also has programs supporting smallholders in Puerto Rico. As part of a previous career that encompassed humanitarian service, environmental protection and international development, Hugh led the Bahá’í Faith’s participation in the Network on Conservation and Religion launched by HRH Prince Philip to “develop the constituency and the ethical basis of conservation” as a way to mark the 25th Anniversary of the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF).


Related content for: