Amira Odeh: Planting Fruit Trees for a Resilient Puerto Rico
Amira: In Puerto Rico, we import more than 85% of the food that we eat. Even though we have the perfect climate and rich soils, decades of colonization have weakened our local agriculture and caused dependence on imports. The impact of recent hurricanes has made this problem worse. Since the impact of Hurricane Maria in 2017, we have been leading an initiative to reforest Puerto Rico. We have been giving out fruit trees and seeds to families in all 78 municipalities of the islands. Most recently, we are working on creating fruit tree parks where communities will be able to access safe and free food all year long and also be more food secure when another natural disaster happens.