Growing Knowledge & Building Partnerships

¿Cuál será el impacto de los drones y la agricultura de precisión para los productores de América Latina? Un equipo de ingenieros de Honduras quizás tenga la respuesta a esta pregunta. Escrito por Mitchell Opatowsky Como parte de nuestra serie de entrevistas con líderes innovadores en el sector agropecuario,  esta semana, Mitchell tuvo la oportunidad de conversar con representantes de la firma hondureña Green Technology. Esta empresa trabaja en la intersección de la agricultura con la tecnología de información y comunicación. La compañía está compuesta por un diverso grupo de ingenieros de informática y agrónomos. Gracias a su diverso capital humano, la empresa se ha fortalecido de una amplia gama de conocimiento sobre las deficiencias en las cadenas de valor agrícola y como, en particular, los drones y otras tecnologías pueden abordar esos desafíos.                                ...

Highlights from IFRPI’s 2017 Food Policy report: Part 2 The effects of Climate Change, Violence, and Inequality and how Agricultural R&D expenditures and better trade policies can help Nicaragua's Dry Corridor was especially hit by El Niño last year  Some parts below are paraphrased from the report. Here's the original link to the report: http://www.ifpri.org/publication/food-security-and-nutrition-growing-cities-new-challenges Read the first part of our reflections on the IFRPI’s report here: #Cities are growing fast & @IFPRI has tips to connect #farmers to urban poor| Blog: https://t.co/cq1UDp7ije | Video: https://t.co/yPDimZ6L47 — Partners Ag & Food (@PartnersAgFood) April 17, 2017 In our recent reflection of  IFPRI’s 2017 Global Food Policy Report, we discussed major themes of the urban-rural divide and the changing diets that are evolving in urban centers. We connected these issues with poverty in countries where this divide is mo...

Highlights from IFPRI's 2017 Food Policy Report: Part 1 Original link to the report is here:  http://www.ifpri.org/publication/food-security-and-nutrition-growing-cities-new-challenges How hungry is the world today? Are more people suffering from hunger today than 50 years ago? What can be done about the hunger that remains so visible in our world today? Where is work being done, and who can we look to for the best practices in solving this grand problem? These are questions that the International Food Policy Research Institute ’s (IFPRI) recently published Global Food Policy Report 2017 seeks to answer. Its meticulous efforts of gathering data now point to a positive trend! Global Hunger affects now 11 percent, down from 19 percent in 1990. While this is certainly progress, this 770+ million-strong collection of individuals still presents a major challenge to the international humanitarian landscape. We spent some time reading through the IFPRI's report and ...

Highlight from Tommy and Arthur Bassett's recent trip to Guatemala Help was needed to follow up on the host communication strategy proposed last year in Guatemala as part of Farmer-to Farmer (F2F) Rural Enterprise Development program. One of these host organization, FECCEG ( Federacion Commercializadora de Café Especial de Guatemala),  was looking to strengthen current relationships and improve their methods of connecting with buyers and customers in the United States in order to increase sales and promote their coffee in new markets. F2F Luncheon: Top left to top right (Arthur Bassett, Blake Scott, Tommy Bassett, Andrea Fión) FECCEG is a federation of 13 small coffee cooperatives, encompassed by 2,136 small-holder farmers, including 562 women producers. By working across six departments in Guatemala, the federation helps scale local coffee value chains. FECCEG supports small producers with a wide array of integrated technical assistance, including organic c...

Summary by Anthony Jilek of his recent trip to Nicaragua and how crossbreeding programs and record keeping can improve livelihoods for small dairy and livestock producers. Jerry Nolte, Julio Cisne and his herdsman evaluating Julio’s pastures near Matagalpa Most farmers in Nicaragua follow a very traditional system of dual-purpose livestock production. This means that the cows produce milk and the calves are raised for meat. Modern practices of management are not often followed. No production records are kept on the cows, and yields are simply calculated by dividing the liters of milk sold by the number of cows milked. The managers of slaughter plants have stated the cost to slaughter a 600 kg animal is the same as the cost to slaughter a 450 kg animal. Therefore, the larger animals are preferred. This includes cattle like Holsteins, Brown Swiss, and Brahman, large, late maturing breeds. Most steers are slaughtered at 3 ½ - 4 years of age. Heifers, young females cow without...

Interview with EcoFiltro CEO Philip Wilson CEO and founder of EcoFiltro, Philip Wilson, sharing filtered water with schoolchildren in Guatemala  Last week, as part of our continuing series to learn and highlight the work the tech innovators and startups are carrying out in many of the same communities that Partners of the Americas strives to empower, our AFS intern Mitchell Opatowsky interviewed Benjamin Bunker, CEO and Founder of Global BrightLight Foundation. After learning more about the foundation’s efforts to bring solar-powered electricity to marginalized rural localities in Guatemala, Ben mentioned that there other innovative businesses trying to address other challenges afflicting the farming localities where we carry out our work. He recommended that we reach out to EcoFiltro, a socially-minded company that sells ceramic pot water filters in Guatemala and recently expanded to Mexico, Honduras, and Costa Rica. This week, Mitchell had the opportunity to speak w...

Above: Creamery owner Marilyn Cisne (left) gathers with worker Jamilette (near left), her daughter Alexandra and worker Helen for a taste-testing of yogurts. We worked on adjusting the tanginess, the density of the yogurt body, sugar, amount of flavoring and coloring. Asking the opinions of everyone in the creamery (and family) helped to include everyone in the new production process and give them ownership of the future product. Note the use of cheap and expired plastic containers. This was common as disposable and high quality stainless-steel products and equipment are less available here than in the U.S. The answer is queso fresco . It is a similar cheese to queso blanco, but with a creamier and softer white texture. It’s popular in Spain, Portugal, and across many countries of Latin America, including Nicaragua. This is the same type of cheese that is used to make dishes like cheesecake, enchiladas, as well as distinctively Nicaraguan cuisine like cuajada frita and Güirila. ...