Growing Knowledge & Building Partnerships

Plastic bottles pile up near a water source in the DR. Imagine it’s a Tuesday morning and you just rolled your trash can to the curb for weekly pickup. In a few hours, a garbage truck will swing by and you’ll never see that solid waste again; out of sight, out of mind. But in some regions of the world, this process isn't so easy. In the Dominican Republic, solid waste management is a huge challenge due to a lack of resources and limited space for inhabitants and landfills. Trash collection is virtually non-existent on the island and practices are unsafe for handlers where it does exist. Materials like plastic, pharmaceuticals, and fertilizers are often disposed of improperly, contaminating the water supply and posing a serious hazard to public health. In January, Farmer-to-Farmer volunteer Annette Poliwka traveled to the DR as a solid waste management specialist to assess local challenges through meetings with schools, universities and community leaders. Here are some impo...

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to work as a Farmer-to-Farmer volunteer? For coffee guru Chris Vigilante, working with Cooperative Asdecohue in Huehuetenango, Guatemala, was an experience he'll never forget. Get a first hand account of what it was like to travel to Guatemala's western highlands by watching his video recap of the trip below. To find out more about this volunteer's experience, check out Chris' full blog post about the trip here:  Vigilante Coffee Company .

What do bananas and beef jerky have to do with each other? A few weeks ago, that is the question 65 participants set out to answer as they attended Farmer-to-Farmer food dehydration demonstrations hosted by the Fabretto Children’s Foundation . In Nicaragua, rural and food insecure communities face the daily challenge of meeting nutritional needs without access to refrigeration to preserve fruits, vegetables, and other nutrient-dense foods. Participants assist in constructing the dehydrator. With the help of F2F volunteer Timothy Bowser, however, Fabretto students and staff alike were trained in the use of solar dehydration technology. Products as simple as bananas and beef jerky are examples of value-added agricultural goods that can be preserved through this process. Timothy assisted in the construction of three solar dehydrators, one at each Fabretto site he visited. Staying true to Fabretto’s methodology of “learning by doing,” participants took part in building the dehydr...

Workshop participants gather to learn about essential oils. Farmer-to-Farmer volunteer Clare Licher is nothing if not passionate about her family-run business,  PhiBee Aromatics , based in Sedona, Arizona. Building on almost thirty years of experience in aromatherapy and essential oils, Clare recently took her expertise to the Jamaican coast to work with Yerba Buena Farm in St. Mary. During her two week stay, Clare consulted with YBF on the logistics of establishing a commercial distillery and the growth potential of local and export markets.  Why are essential oils so important to this community?  Essential oils have a high price tag on the commercial market, both due to the time and labor intensive processes of producing them and the plethora of health benefits they provide consumers. While Jamaica is home to a variety of aromatic plants, there are currently no major distilleries located on the island to produce these unique products. Although they would ...

F2F volunteer Tommy Bassett demonstrates coffee cupping. As two-time volunteers with the Farmer-to-Farmer program, Arthur and Tommy Bassett have formed a dynamic duo working in rural coffee production. In May of this year, the pair traveled to the western highlands of Guatemala to work with Federacion Comercializadora de Café Especial de Guatemala (FECCEG) and Kishé Coffee. With previous experience working with a Mexican coffee cooperative and as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Vanuatu, Arthur arrived in Guatemala City ready to dive into the project. The strength of FECCEG and Kishé Coffee lies in their grassroots mission to improve the livelihood of local farmers by creating a quality product in a sustainable and equitable way. Of the 22 departments of Guatemala, 20 are capable of growing coffee, making the industry a promising source of income generation for local farmers. Working primarily in Quetzaltenango and San Marcos, FECCEG met with the volunteers to discuss previous ...

Partners is pleased to welcome José Almodóvar and Rafael Marte as our two new field officers for the Farmer-to-Farmer program in the Dominican Republic! Our field officers in Haiti, Nicaragua, Guatemala, and the Dominican Republic play a key role in the Farmer-to-Farmer program. They typically have strong backgrounds in agronomy, environmental science, business development, or rural development and are also bilingual, allowing them to easily translate during highly technical assignments. They also provide regular follow-up to our host organizations to make sure that the knowledge shared by volunteers is properly understood, being applied, and successfully replicated. This allows them to cultivate strong relationships within the communities we work in as well as contributes to the sustainability of the Farmer-to-Farmer program. Our two new field officers, José Almodóvar (left) and Rafael Marte (right), with Partners HQ Senior Program Officer, Courtney Dunham (center)

by F2F volunteer Thomas "Rip" Winkel, F2F Volunteer to Ecuador. Read about Rip's previous assignment in Ecuador here .  EducaFuturo certificate recipients in cacao and soil management Yet again I have been fortunate to have worked on another Farmer to Farmer assignment, an organization that is supported by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) via the Partners of the Americas. This time, however, it was on the northwest side of Ecuador, in a town named Viche, located in the coastal province of Esmeraldas. The date for this project was February 27th through March 11th, 2016, and was in conjunction with EducaFuturo, an Ecuadorian organization directly affiliated with Partners of the Americas. The mission of EducaFuturo is to significantly reduce child labor in Ecuador (and Panama), especially among Afro-descendants, indigenous, and migrant populations. Its desire is to improve educational outcome for children and teens involved in labor, while workin...

by Robert Bond, F2F volunteer to Guatemala  F2F volunteer Robert Bond working with members of Grupo Union Esperanza Guatemala possesses a rich and distinct culture, characterized by a fusion of Spanish and indigenous (Mayan) influences, seen in its colorful handicraft markets and regional costumes. However, it is also a predominantly poor country, and the most populous in Central America, with a GDP per capita roughly half of the average for Latin America and the Caribbean; its agricultural sector accounts for nearly 1/3 of the labor force (Source: CIA World Factbook).  My recent trip to Guatemala in April 2016 was my 27th volunteer F2F project over the past 15 years, and my first to the country. With a sales and marketing background rather than farming, I was delighted by the opportunity to help strengthen horticulture value chains in order to stimulate productivity of small and medium scale farmers, and improve income and living standards for them, their families, and...

Farmer-to-Farmer volunteers Jennifer Kushner and Larry Jones recently traveled to Haiti to work Senior Program Officer Andi Thomas, F2F volunteer Jennifer Kushner, F2F Field Officer Stessy Auguste, F2F volunteer Larry Jones with F2F field staff on strategy, and meet with F2F hosts in northern Haiti. While in country, Ms. Kushner and Mr. Jones also conducted a training on Leadership and Monitoring & Evaluation for a group of association and cooperative leaders. This was the first time that leaders from groups receiving F2F assistance in Haiti had gathered together across sectors. The key lesson of the training was that effective leaders are always learning. Ms. Kushner and Mr. Jones shared that leaders have vision; leaders act; and leaders step back and reflect. One workshop participant asked if stepping back was part of evaluation and this led to a dynamic conversation about the importance of reflection in monitoring and evaluation efforts. Ms. Kushner leading a training ...