Growing Knowledge & Building Partnerships

Visiting Cheese Cooperative in Nicaragua This past July, Dr. John Rushing volunteered with the Farmer to Farmer program in Nicaragua to work with dairy cooperatives. He provided techincal advice on equipment acquisitions, made recommendations on plant layouts and evaluated operations to meet international food safety standards and improve food technologies.  This was his second trip to Nicaragua as a Farmer to Farmer Volunteer and he was able to visit some of the same hosts organizations providing technical follow up and feedback.   One of the first projects during his time in Nicaragua, focused on reviewing the ventilation system for one of the major cheese cooperatives in the program.  Dairy plants are by nature of the work,  hot and humid.  Employees are expected to wear considerable amounts of sanitary gear, which makes the work hotter. However, it is not simple to ventilate the facility because the effects of aerosols produced by water sprays can be a source of post proce

Patricia Thomas poses with Farmer to Farmer Staff and ISA's Academic Dean at a teacher training  at ISA Patricia Thomas, STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) Science Specialist with the Florida Department of Education, kicked off her second "Flex" volunteer assignment with Partners' Farmer to Farmer Program just over 1 week ago. Patricia arrived in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic on August 18th and will remain in-country until September 1st to provide training to primary and secondary-level natural science teachers in best practices for natural sciences instruction. These hands-on workshops are being carried out to support the Natural Science and Engineering Training Program at el Instituto Superior de Agricultura (ISA University) in Santiago, Dominican Republic. Training with science and math teachers in Azua Province During her first Flex assignment with ISA in May 2011, Patricia's training focused largely on ph

Partners of the Americas' Farmer to Farmer Team is pleased to share with you a new video featuring the activities and impact of our Program in Haiti. The history and activities of Haiti's own Makouti Agro Enterprise is also highlighted, and three farmer beneficiaries share their stories. This video was created by three talented FTF volunteers: Clay Mason, Sid McGregor (of PostMay Films ) and Brian Mehrens. They have captured on film what many of our volunteers have experienced - a Program that is making a difference in Haiti's agricultural industry and the lives of farmers. Thank you to all who have contributed to the Program's success since 1996! We hope this video will reveal the bigger picture, and bring back good memories to many of you. Please share it, and if you catch the Haiti volunteering bug again, we would love to hear from you.

Below, Claire Clugston reflects on her internship with Partners of the Americas' Farmer to Farmer Program: During my first year as a Master’s Degree Student in Sustainable International Dev elopment at Brandeis, I decided to focus my studies and thesis on agricultural development in Latin America. Interning at Partners of the Americas was an excellent opportunity to build on my experience working with coffee farmers as a Peace Corps Volunteer in the Dominican Republic and to gain experience at a programmatic level. Now, as I enter my final week here at Partners, I can say that interning with Farmer to Farmer has been a fantastic experience. I have deepened my knowledge of agricultural development in Latin America and gained some surprising insights as well. Below are what I believe to be the three most important lessons I learned this summer: 1. The Power of Connections FtF Intern Claire Clugston in the Dominican Republic In literature about agriculture, an often r

Dr. Lawton Stewart dando su presentacion El 23 y 24 de julio en un hotel capitalino de Nicaragua se llevó a cabo el III Congreso Nacional Ganadero del país, en el cual participaron unas 400 personas entre ganaderos, técnicos nacionales e internacionales, representantes de casas comerciales y representantes de las instituciones del gobierno. Los expertos internacionales que participaron en el Congreso son oriundos de Centroamérica, Estados Unidos, Holanda, Uruguay y Brasil. Los voluntarios del Programa Farmer to Farmer,   Gerald Nolte y Anthony Jilek de la Universidad de River Falls Wisconsin y Lawton Stewart de Virginia Polytechnic Institute, tuvieron una activa participación en la divulgación de tecnología y experiencias en la producción de la carne bovina y en el ramo de mejoramiento genético para la promoción del desarrollo tecnológico de la ganadería Nicaragüense y su competitividad. La realización de este III Congreso Ganadero representa para el sector agricola una gran par

Excitement as the bees march into the top bar hive My month of beekeeping in Jamaica is over and I have been back home in Honduras for about a week now. My entire Farmer to Farmer assignment keeps running through my head, however. My thoughts keep going back to the month I spent helping to set up a top bar hive beekeeping project and promoting this simple and economic system with bee farmer associations on the island. The main interest among most Jamaican beekeepers for top bar hives (tbh) is the increased wax production. Bees wax cannot be imported into Jamaica. The government wants no further bee diseases to enter the country, especially something like colony collapse disorder. Obtaining the necessary wax is difficult for the new beekeepers and those who want to expand their operations.    The top bar beekeeping system requires very little wax to get the bees started in their boxes but yields much more, since harvesting is done by cutting off the comb, crus

Wayne and Connie Burleson from Absarokee, Montana volunteered with Partners of the America's Farmer to Farmer program in Nicaragua, April 8-21, 2012. They worked on vegetable production and marketing  in school gardening projects, community learning centers and rural areas around Masaya and near Leon. The Burlesons manage their own farm in Montana and actively participate in their local area's farmers market.  They have volunteered in other Farmer to Farmer assignments in South Africa for Best Management Practices and in Malawi on Cooperative Vegetable Production. This was their first Farmer to Farmer assignment with Partners of the Americas and below is a video documenting their trip. Both Wayne and Connie are certified square foot gardening instructors and actively seek ways to make gardening available to everyone. They describe "Gardening for Life" as a collection of methods for raising homegrown, super foods, that are great tasting, nutrient diverse that w

In addition to hands-on workshops, training videos are an effective means by which to introduce farmers to specific skills and to spread the word about projects. In Guyana, there has been increasing demand for video production specialists to create short videos that can be disseminated across the country. One example is a video on the Carambola Fruit Fly produced in collaboration with IICA-Guyana, by Farmer to Farmer volunteers Clay Mason and Alex Crowder. In Guyana, the Carambola (also known as star fruit) is an important source of income for many farmers. The spread of the Carambola Fruit Fly is therefore an issue of great concern to farmers and government agencies alike.  In this eight minute video, a representative from the National Plant Protection Organization in Guyana is able to cover topics ranging from how to identify Carambola Fruit Fly larvae to how to create traps for the pest.  Another video produced by Farmer to Farmer volunteers Cheryl Diermyer and Pat F