Growing Hope

We consider ourselves lucky to have so many talented, passionate and successful clients. We get excited when they have a great quarter, smash their sales goals or get kudos in the press—and especially when we have a client that’s making a difference in the world.

Such a story is unfolding with Global Breadfruit, a company that is cultivating breadfruit trees to help solve the global hunger crisis. Breadfruit has been a staple crop in the Pacific for thousands of years. As a gluten-free carbohydrate that’s rich in vitamins, minerals and fiber, it’s a nutritional asset. It can also be prepared in a variety of ways—baked, steamed, boiled, fried—and when it’s cooked right, it’s delicious. Best of all, breadfruit is a source of plenty. A single tree can provide up to 400 pounds of food a year.

Because breadfruit has been impossible to propagate (that’s horticulture-speak for breeding plants) on a large scale, the potential of this wonder food has remained untapped. That is, until a breakthrough by Dr. Susan Murch at the University of British Columbia Okanagan paved the way for a commercially viable method of mass breadfruit propagation. Global Breadfruit’s partner, Dr. Axel Feldhoff, has built upon Dr. Murch’s research and is now using this method for mass propagation at labs in Costa Rica, New Zealand, Florida and Germany, working to bring vigorous young breadfruit trees to hungry people throughout the tropics.

“These plants really offer a huge opportunity to change the world,” says Josh Schneider, part of the management team at Global Breadfruit. “Breadfruit has so much promise to empower people to feed themselves and their families.”

That promise is starting to be fulfilled. Global Breadfruit has been meeting with heads of state and ambassadors for many African countries, including Nigeria, which is interested in using breadfruit to combat the hunger problem in one of its largest cities, Lagos. Soon, breadfruit trees may dot the landscape of tropical countries across the world, each one making a difference for a family and together, providing food security on a village, national and regional level.

To learn more about breadfruit, go to Global Breadfruit’s Facebook page and like them to join the conversation about ending hunger in the tropics. Global Breadfruit’s website and the website for the Breadfruit Institute—one of Global Breadfruit’s partners—also have great information about breadfruit, its uses and its potential. And if you’re as moved as we have been by this story, please consider making a donation with the Trees That Feed Foundation, another of Global Breadfruit’s fellow trailblazers in the breadfruit movement.