Growing Knowledge & Building Partnerships

On March 1, 1961, President John F. Kennedy established the Peace Corps. This year, from February 23 to March 1, 2014, the Peace Corps community celebrates the many ways that Returned Peace Corps Volunteers (RPCVs) have made a difference both at home and abroad. Claire Clugston in the Dominican Republic (RPCV DR '10-'12) Many RPCVs also have served as Farmer-to-Farmer volunteers. The skills and experience RPCVs gain from their Peace Corps experience is invaluable to their work as F2F volunteers. Their ability to quickly adapt to their surroundings and understand and communicate across diverse cultures allows them to successfully collaborate with their country partners and implement successful and sustainable change.  Here are some examples of RPCVs who also have served as F2F volunteers: Claire Clugston : served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in the Dominican Republic from 2010 to 2012. During her service, she lived and worked in a farming community of 50 households

Farmer-to-Farmer volunteer Dr. Paul McLeod of the University of Arkansas recently traveled to southern Belize to complete a Flex assignment focused on backyard vegetable production and improved insect management. This was a  follow-up to  previous assignments and he visited numerous communities and made recommendations for improved gardening practices. Aside from rural communities and small commercial farmers, Dr. McLeod visited two technical high schools and the National 4-H Program. He taught seminars on the use of drip irrigation and the benefits of home gardens, highlighting that vegetables are an essential part of a healthy and nutritious diet and that they can also help with disease prevention. School gardens help reinforce awareness of healthy eating and provide additional fresh produce to students. These gardens are also excellent training grounds for students to learn about composting, soil preparation, transplanting seedlings, and controlling pests and disease. These ski

While this blog is focused primarily on Partners of the Americas’ Farmer-to-Farmer Program, we sometimes cover related Partners’ programs as well as some broader agriculture and food security topics. One of these is Partners’ Haiti Nutrition Security Program (NSP). The NSP seeks to improve the nutritional status of pregnant and lactating women and young children in 3 geographic-focus corridors in Haiti. Launched in 2013, the NSP is funded by the USAID Feed the Future Initiative – a U.S. Government effort to combat global hunger and food insecurity. The NSP strategy hinges on a holistic community health, nutrition, and livelihoods approach that works through local NGOs and integrates assistance activities within the existing government health and nutrition systems. Building on the existing tradition of Mother’s Clubs in Haiti, NSP is using the care group model to deliver trainings, provide services, and communicate good health and nutrition behavior messages.  Care group members

The calf bred from the Milking Shorthorn genes  donated by the U.S. Milking Shorthorn Association In Nicaragua, Farmer to Farmer’s country strategy focuses on increasing the productivity and profitability of the dairy sub-sector. Some volunteers assist farmer associations in increasing overall milk production and milk quality. Others support the diversification of Nicaraguan dairy products in order to increase their sales at the local, national, and international level. Between July and August 2012, Jerry Nolte (an agricultural economist) and Tony Jilek (animal scientist) spent almost three weeks training farmers on forage management, feeding quality forages, and cattle breeding in four regions of Nicaragua. Breeding programs are particularly important in Nicaragua to ensure that the breed of cattle is suited to the region’s climate and compatible with the type and quality of feed available. Based on their experiences and observations in-country, Jerry and Tony proposed the intr

Workshop attendees from all F2F implementing organizations Last month, some of the Partners’ Farmer-to-Farmer staff traveled to Marrakesh, Morocco for a F2F Implementers Workshop. The F2F Program is a worldwide program and USAID funds various non-profit organizations to implement it in different countries and regions. The goal of the workshop was for all the partners to share experiences relating to planning and implementing agricultural volunteer programs and to better understand USAID policies and practices relating to monitoring and evaluation, reporting, and program execution. The Partners team spent a busy week learning about the history of Farmer-to-Farmer, participating in break-out sessions, brainstorming best practices for our country programs, and getting to know other program staff. We also found some time to sight-see around Marrakesh and even left the city to visit a women’s cooperative and a small family farm. Some of the Partners' F2F Team Family farm