Growing Knowledge & Building Partnerships

By Christa Michaud, Farmer-to-Farmer Volunteer, Haiti Christa Michaud conducting gender training  for coffee farmers in Northern Haiti in March.  Women in Haiti play a valuable and important role in the country’s coffee sector. They are actively involved in the production, export and selling of coffee, but having minimal access to land, credit, training, and leaderships positions due to gender-based inequities limits their economic opportunities. In an effort to help build a more gender-inclusive value chain in Haiti’s coffee sector, I traveled to the country as a Farmer-to-Farmer volunteer to assist in the development of a local chapter of the International Women’s Coffee Alliance (IWCA). Founded in 2003, IWCA is a nonprofit that advocates for women in coffee, and provides a critical for um for them to build and foster relationships, gain essential leadership and technical skills, and access markets. There are currently 19 IWCA chapters around the world, representing...

Written by F2F volunteer Tim Cobb It is with gratitude that I am able to report on a portion of my recent trip to Nicaragua in support of the local Beef and livestock industries. This trip was the second opportunity I have had and so the additional excitement at the opportunity led me to seek understanding of the overall industry structure. I looked for which agriculture organizations and groups are working to better the financial opportunities of small producers, what specific things could be accomplished in future assignments as well as what I could personally give to improve the well-being of another. Throughout the trip it became apparent that each producer or organization equally shared the desire to create and grow economic stability as well as the quality of products that are derived from operations small and large. This desire serves as the beginning point to allowing specialists from other nations to come and affect real improvement based and built upon existing structures. I ...

Earlier this spring, Dr. Terry Podmore traveled down to the Dominican Republic to visit local banana plantations. Bananas are a steady source of income in the area, but production is limited by the amount of water that the farmers can access - some can only water their crops one or two days per week. The current methods of surface irrigation, referred to locally as “flood irrigation," are probably inefficient in their use of water, since these methods typically have low application efficiency unless carefully managed.  Dr. Podmore is an experienced irrigation professional with expertise in irrigation technologies and training of growers to improve water use in order to counteract the effects of global warming and the need for increased water supplies. While in-country, Dr. Podmore put his knowledge to good use visiting several farms and conducting farmer trainings. Check out these photos from Dr. Podmore's time in the field!  Inspecting water pump capabilities ...

With the arrival of September, the smell of chalkboards and classrooms is in the air. This past Monday was Labor Day, and most elementary and high schools in the US start the week before or after the long weekend. In honor of all the kids heading back to school this week, AFS takes a look back over the last year to see what students learned through Farmer-to-Farmer and NSP. Artwork from Robin's Bay Bee Club member Learning started early in Jamaica. In September 2014, Tom Hebert  spent some time with the Robin’s Bay Bee Club. He gave a presentation about beekeeping around the world. Tom wanted the children to see how beekeeping can differ greatly from one country to the next and how it can also share some commonalities. Halfway through the presentation, the children wanted to do some hands-on activities so they went outside to help Tom assemble materials for making a top bar hive from banana leaves. This built upon a another F2F assignment with Melanie Kirby the previous winte...

Young dragon fruit plants (on poles) surrounded by sweet potato This post was drawn from a volunteer trip report written by   Paul Wojtkowski. The overall objective of this assignment was to strengthen horticulture value chains in order to stimulate productivity of small- and medium-scale farmers. Volunteer Paul Wojtkowski went to assist the host organization, Rincón Grande, in improving their agronomic management of organic fresh fruits like dragon fruit and vegetables like spinach, kale, rainbow carrots, and sweet potato. Its facilities are located in the municipality of San Andrés Itzapa, Department of Chimaltenango. Rincón Grande has about five hectares of land where vegetables are grown and is currently developing a dragon fruit plantation, as well as a plant that is equipped for receiving, processing, packaging, refrigeration, and shipping fresh and processed produce. The company places special emphasis on the development of healthy foods (i.e., organic and natural in...