The organization s work is driven by the expressed needs of the people participating in the project. Heifer Project works with community groups. First, HPI helps them analyze their situation. Then, they plan specific activities to achieve their goals. At this point, the HPI project becomes reality.
Farmers take training, build sheds, plant trees and grasses.
Then the livestock arrives and the benefits of milk, wool, draft power, eggs and offspring begin. Finally, the group evaluates its progress, and the cycle repeats as the group moves to more and more ambitious goals, each time visioning, deciding, implementing, reflecting. Northern Aroostook Homesteaders Thousands of rolling acres of potato and grain fields stretch to the Canadian border in northeast Maine. What few small-scale farms are there are widely scattered and lonely. In 1987 in this isolated setting, four homesteader families and a county extension aid met to talk about starting an HPI-supported livestock project.