Growing Knowledge & Building Partnerships

Oyster mushrooms and other specialty mushrooms are a growing business in Guatemala and elsewhere. Farmer-to-Farmer has been assisting Asociación Visión Maya in improving production practices and addressing other issues in the mushroom value chain. Partners' Vice President for Development Programs Peggy Carlson (far right) recently visited Visión Maya and got to see the operation first-hand and talk to some of the women about the impact of the program. The women worked with two F2F volunteers - Dr. Khalid Hameed and Dr. Henry Van Cotter from Duke University) - earlier this year who made some recommendations about modifying production systems. Action items for the various cooperative members including making changes to improve environmental conditions, developing better monitoring systems, and even smaller items, such as clearer labeling of the production bags with dates and strains. The producers have already been making changes and seeing results. One woman moved her who...

Green charcoal created by CRI and Makouti The U.N. has designated 2015 as the Year of Soil, and over the 24 years that Partners has been running the Farmer-to-Farmer (F2F) program, our volunteers have often worked with farmers throughout the tropics on these critical topics: soil conservation and fertility management. Soil conservation and fertility management are important everywhere, but they are absolutely critical in tropical countries with heavily weathered soils like Nicaragua, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, and Guatemala. While a number of recommended best management practices (reduced tillage, mulching, etc.) have proven to be effective in many situations, one seemingly ancient but relevant practice is beginning to gain momentum in the sustainable agriculture arena: biochar.  A t erra preta do indio  site in the  Brazilian Amazon Biochar – biomass that has been charred in a low oxygen environment for agricultural use – was first “discove...

This post contains excerpts and photos from Dr. Michael Bauer's trip report about his recent F2F assignment in Haiti.  "The bee industry in Haiti is still in its infancy. Despite deforestation and parasitic damage from diseases like the wax moth and varroa mites there is still great growth potential. There continues to be a high level of interest in beekeeping and a strong desire to become a beekeeper.  This assignment was intended to educate both potential beekeepers as well as to expand the knowledge base of current beekeepers. Return visits to sites where I had been on previous assignments was a strong desire of mine to see the impact of those sessions and to see what knowledge and skills were implemented in the group and individual bee colonies." May 30, 2015: At one training at a Gonaive cooperative, "many of the attendees were students from a local agriculture college. They had had a brief introduction to beekeeping from their institution. Th...

The Nutrition Security Program (NSP) and Universite Laval (AKOSAA - Enhancing and Building Capacity for Increased Food Security in Haiti) teams in Saint-Marc, Artibonite, organized a community health and agriculture fair on May 1st 2015 to promote health and nutrition among adolescents, women, children, and men. The activity received tremendous support and response from the general population, local community-based organizations, and government entities as well as school-age children. Discussion among Mother Leaders Both programs are collaborating at different levels with the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Agriculture. Their main efforts are oriented toward building capacity at the community level. Families in targeted communities of Artibonite are in great need of nutritious food they can get only from a diversified diet. NSP is using the cascade approach to train women in the communities on Infant and Young Children Feeding and Nutrition. Women are organized on the mo...

Those who enjoy authentic Indian food might have recently noticed a lack of spice in some of their favorite dishes. A staple of Indian cuisine, Capsicum annuum , more commonly known as the green chili pepper, has all but disappeared from U.S. supermarkets following a March ban on produce imports from the Dominican Republic.  The DR has recently been infested by Mediterranean fruit flies — a ravenous pest that has destroyed billions of dollars in agricultural products around the world.  The impact on the DR's agriculture has been devastating and immediate. Local markets are now flooded with product, and prices have crashed well below profitable levels. Enter Farmer-to-Farmer volunteer Brian Upchurch, a private farm owner from North Carolina with expertise in greenhouse management.  At the end of May, Mr. Upchurch traveled to assess and evaluate current greenhouse operations and practices of the Jarabacoa Cluster of vegetable farmers in Jarabacoa, La Vega, in the DR. A...

F2F Volunteer Mathias Medina visits Partners HQ Today, F2F volunteer Mathias Medina visited Partners of the Americas headquarters in Washington D.C. to share some of his accomplishments and experiences during his recent F2F field assignments in Haiti and Nicaragua. Medina, a Chilean-French agricultural economist, has worked on development projects with NGOs in an array of communities across the globe, from Latin American countries such as Ecuador and Chile to as far away as Yemen. The objective of Medina's first F2F assignment was to assess Haitian coffee producer cooperatives' competitiveness and train them in key agribusiness practices including strategic and financial planning. He primarily conducted the assignment with F2F host Makouti, an organization boasting more than 1,000 farmers that produce a wide range of agricultural products. Medina's second F2F assignment took place in Nicaragua, where he conducted a study on national dairy and meat consumption per capit...

Partners of the Americas Agriculture and Food Security Team congratulates Sir Fazle Hasan Abed on receiving the 2015 World Food Prize. Sir Fazle is from Bangladesh and if the founder of BRAC, the largest non-governmental development organization in the world, which has helped raise at least 150 million people out of poverty. According to the World Food Prize announcement , Sir Fazle will be honored as the 2015 World Food Prize Laureate for his unparalleled achievement in building a unique, integrated development organization that many have hailed as the most effective anti-poverty organization in the world. The World Food Prize is a prestigious international award recognizing the achievements of individuals who have advanced human development by improving the quality, quantity or availability of food in the world. To find out more about how Partners of the Americas addresses food security issues, click on the "food security" label to the right for a selection of article...