Agricultural Extension with F2F Host Mission ILAC

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By F2F Volunteer Robert Crook

In September 2017, I traveled to the Dominican Republic to work on a USAID-funded Farmer-to-Farmer (F2F) Climate Change Adaptation program. For this F2F assignment, I was asked to work with Mission ILAC, a faith-based organization located in Santiago de Los Caballeros, the DR’s second largest city. For over 60 years, Mission ILAC has a long and well-respected history of implementing medical programs that provide vital medical care and surgeries for underserved rural populations. In the last decade, the organization has been actively working on improving the economic livelihoods of local farmers around Santiago. Much of this technical assistance is focused on ways to empower agricultural producers and prevent rural populations from migrating to the crowded urban areas of the country. During my time in Santiago, I was fortunate enough to work alongside Mission ILAC staff in order to develop a more strategic and climate-smart vision for their agricultural extension programs.

In addition, also had the chance to learn more about one of Mision ILAC’s most recent agricultural extension project. This new project involves the construction and management of household gardens or “Huertas caseras”. While these small gardens are typically used to grow vegetables for household consumption, the organization is working in partnership with local farmers into order to adapt these gardens as platforms for income-generation. Currently, many local farmers associated with Mission ILAC are seeing the potential of expanding their household vegetable production for the domestic market.

My F2F assignment in Santiago de los Caballeros not only provided with the ability to share my knowledge and skillset, it also gave me the chance to learn more about the Dominican Republic and its people. After all, the Dominican Republic is a country unlike others in the Caribbean. It is part of the island of Hispaniola that was first settled by the native Taino people. In many ways, the legacy of the Taino people stills influence the culture the language of the country. The DR boasts a very diverse topography. While the coastal areas have a very warm and humid climate, the provinces around the Cordillera Central experience much cooler temperatures. It is in these mountain ranges where coffee is grown in agroforestry systems under the shade of banana and plantain plants and fruit trees and Pinus occidentalis. They really are beautiful, fields of layered greenery topped by the soft crowns of these Hispaniolan Pines. While the diseases of roya and broca have severely diminished the acreage of coffee plantings over the past 20 years, there are still very beautiful and healthy fields of coffee being grown to supply some really tasty and unique coffee varieties.

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