Growing Knowledge & Building Partnerships

Partners of the Americas, Farmer-to-Farmer volunteers, Cheryl Diermyer and Pat Fellows of Wisconsin, have been working with staff at the Guyana Hydroponic Shadehouse Production and Marketing Project on the production of a hydroponic gardening training video, “ Harvesting Green Gold .” The video will support the Hydroponic Shadehouse Project extension officers’ face-to-face training activities. The Shadehouse Project is managed by the Guyana Chapter of Partners of the Americas. Planning for the video began in February when four individuals in three different time zones and two different countries met via Skype to discuss the video design. Meghan Olivier, the project coordinator in Washington D.C.; Cheryl Diermyer, a humanitarian media producer in Wisconsin; and Kelvin Craig and Ryan Nedd of the Shadehouse Project in Guyana discussed the approach to the video and began a rough draft of an outline. The training manual produced by the Shadehouse Production and Marketi...

On April 17 th , two volunteers from Wisconsin traveled to Georgetown, Guyana to fill a “non-traditional” Farmer-to-Farmer volunteer assignment: video production. This is the second volunteer assignment for video producer, Cheryl Diermyer , and the first for Pat Fellows. Their assignment the first week is to produce a training video on Hydroponic Shadehouse Gardening. Over the past few years the unpredictable weather patterns, long periods of drought and especially rain and flooding, have made traditional gardening challenging and not profitable for many garde ne rs in Guyana. A new method of gardening is being introduced to the Guyanese, Hydroponic Shadehouse Gardening. While it is beginning to catch on among some gardeners/farmers, it is hoped this video will assist Hydroponic Shadehouse staff with training. The video will also help to introduce Hydroponic Shadehouse gardening to farmers, assist those who have already built their Shadehouses , make improvements to their str...

The Farmer to Farmer  team wishes all our volunteers, collaborators and friends a Happy Earth Day! Partners' approach is to promote economic growth in an environmentally sustainable way. Many  Farmer to Farmer  assignments focus specifically on the environment, such as training in greenhouse gas emissions and carbon auditing, natural resource and forest management, bird preservation or water conservation. Others focus on organic production, integrated pest management, biogas and responsible waste use/management, and more. Visit the rest of our blog to see more stories about Partners' work in agriculture and environment!

Partners of the Americas' Farmer to Farmer Program recently benefited from a thorough qualitative evaluation conducted by a specialized team from the University of Wisconsin-Extension Program Evaluation Unit. We are eager to share results once the full report is complete. For now here are some excerpts that we thought our readers would find interesting: responses from field staff and beneficiaries (or "hosts") on the common qualities of effective volunteers. Qualities of effective volunteers Hosts were extremely pleased with the volunteer support they had received to date. Host and staff alike agreed on a number of qualities that made volunteer assignments successful, including: simple; flexible; patient; professional; interactive; encouraging; participatory; skilled to work with ‘ordinary’ people; open-minded; does not “direct” or “order”; good communicator; good listener; someone who does not bring “old thoughts” or out-dated approaches; and able to respond to the n...

Farmer to Farmer volunteer, Ira "Buck" Richards, traveled to the Dominican Republic in March to support producers with soil conservation techniques. Mr. Richards worked with producers and gave them technical assistance on how to conserve soils while producing avocados on hillsides that are prone to erosion.  Mr. Richards showing producers how to use soil conservation and land surveying equipment. Mr. Richards giving a practical demonstration. A group of 30 producers in the community of La China-los Guanos in San Jose de Ocoa were trained by the volunteer on how to use soil conservation equipment. Mr. Richards recommended the use of mucuna and canavalia as a way to recuperate eroding soils on the hillsides. Also, Mr. Richards recommended that the live and dead barriers should be built following the slope of the area. The producers acknowledged that this was useful training and that if they want to prevent erosion they have to t...

Partners’ Farmer to Farmer Program has been providing Santoy Cooperative in Jamaica with volunteer technical assistance since 2003. A range of volunteers have helped the vegetable producers, from plant pathologists and irrigation engineers to graphic designers and marketing specialists. One team of volunteers has been especially invested in supporting Santoy and helping them to improve the quantity and quality of their production. The team members are the following: Dr. Tom Evans, Professor of Plant Pathology at University of Delaware; Dr. Wallace Pill, Professor Emeritus of Horticulture at University of Delaware; Dr. Cliff Keil, Professor of Entomology at Pontificia Universidad Catolica in Ecuador and Dr. Ian McCann, Agricultural Engineering Consultant. Partners’ Farmer to Farmer Program is extremely gracious and proud of the work that has been accomplished between the volunteers and Santoy.  Farmer to Farmer volunteers with Jamaican counterparts. Please read below the lat...

Farmer to Farmer volunteer Dr. Jonathan Crane, a specialist in green skin avocados from the University of Florida, traveled to the Dominican Republic to provide assistance to avocado producers. The producers and local extension agents were thrilled to receive this support because the green skin avocados make up the majority of avocados produced in the DR and require different care than other varieties.  Farmer to Farmer volunteer, Dr. Crane shows producers how to identify pests on their avocado trees. Dr. Crane gave various workshops for producers and extension agents and made field visits to the orchards of individual producers. At one of the workshops with 25 people in Sabana Larga, San Jose de Ocoa the volunteer spent the morning training on good pruning practices, production processes and pest management. In the afternoon they went to the orchard of a producer to do a hands-on training in pruning, pest identification and...

Volunteer Dr. Karen Jacobsen with dairy producers. Farmer to Farmer volunteer Dr. Karen Jacobsen recently returned from an assignment in Nicaragua working with cattle nutrition. Dr. Jacobsen provided technical assistance and shared her professional expertise with dairy producers in regards to their feed rations and forage quality. Additionally, Dr. Jacobsen had feed samples analyzed at Dairy One Laboratory in New York so the producers can have an exact understanding of their cattle's nutrition. Dr. Karen Jacobsen on her work with the Farmer to Farmer Program in Nicaragua: "This is my 5th Farmer-to-Farmer assignment, and the 1st time in Nicaragua. I have been 3 times to the Republic of Georgia, and once to Malawi. This has been, by far, the most successful and effective of the 5 FtF assignments I have completed, partly because I know the language, but especially because my hosts with Partners of the Americas organized my time extremely well, enabling me to reach as man...

The country of Guyana is approximately the size of the State of Idaho and has a total population of well under 1 million. That combined with the fact that most of the country is undeveloped, boasts one of the highest levels of plant and animal biodiversity in the world, has an extraordinary network of massive rivers, and warm temperatures year around, opens up some ¨sweet prospects¨ for commercial honey production. While visiting Guyana (March 12-26) I had the opportunity to visit with 2 Guyanese honey producers, Kingdom Apiaries and Rajkumar Apiaries. Both are long time beekeepers with Rajkumar Apiaries spanning 3 generations. The owners confirm that Guyana honey producers are still a long way off from meeting domestic demand for honey. The beverage company, Banks Beer which uses large volumes of imported honey, alone would be a sizable contract for any honey producer. Not to mention the fact that most grocery stores throughout Georgetown are selling imported honey. The reason? Not ...

The Alabama Cooperative Extension System has published an online article featuring FTF Volunteer Robert Spencer's recent trip to Haiti, where he worked with Makouti Agro Enterprise to give trainings in food safety and meat quality assurance. We, along with the farmers in Haiti who participate in these projects, are thankful for the US institutions such as the ACES who value the professional development opportunities that FTF trips can bring to their employees. To view the article, click here .