Growing Knowledge & Building Partnerships

Beekeeping is Cathy Shaw’s passion. She has found that most beekeepers feel the same way she does, and this was no exception in the Dominican Republic. Shaw helped beekeepers raise healthy and strong beehives as a  Farmer-to-Farmer  (F2F) volunteer in June 2019.  For two weeks, Shaw visited many farms and opened multiple beehives, spoke with and encouraged local and new beekeepers, tasted lots of amazing honey, and found some easily fixable problems with hive management. She presented a workshop on basic beekeeping, honey marketing, and entrepreneurship. In total, 90 people attended the workshop with the purpose of better preparing new beekeepers and teaching new techniques for others that already keep hives.  Shaw also held a demonstration in a bee yard to introduce new beekeepers to the wonderful world of beekeeping. She showed them the first-hand inside workings of a beehive, including how bees bring pollen and nectar into the hive and the pests that haunt weak hives.  Shaw

The coffee industry in Colombia represents 25% of the rural employment of the country, with more than 540,000 families growing coffee around the nation.  It is a vital industry for the economy ,  but like most of the agricultural sectors, revenues are not enough to provide a quality life for the farmers and their families, pushing the young generations to stop the family traditions and move towards other professions and to the cities.       T o  avoid  this  problem, an innovation boot camp was created  by the National Coffee Federation ( FedeCafe )   to support young coffee entrepreneurs on their journey to innovate and  develop  new ideas to generate revenue streams from the coffee industry. The four-day camp, Idéate Café, took place in  Chinchiná , a small town in the middle of the mountains in the coffee region, with 100 participants and more than 20 coaches, mentors, and experts to support 50 business ideas.   The ideas  we re innovative  and had a lot o

The areas of  labeling  and  packaging continue  to be a challenge to many  agro -processor and  exporter clients of the Guyana Marketing Cooperation (GMC). With the recent development of an Agriculture Business Development Incubator at the Corporation, there was a dire need to have staff capacity developed in these areas. Therefore, Dr. Melvin  Pascall , a Professor in the Department of Food Science and Technology  at  Ohio State University volunteered for two weeks under the Farmer-to-Farmer Program in October 2019. Dr.  Pascall ,  who  was born in  Trinidad and Tobago  and has a Guyanese grandmother ,  in an interview with the local newspaper  S tabroek news  mentioned that his assignment in Guyana derived from a personal commitment which he had made to  raising standards in the  region ;   as  attaining  labeling and packaging  standards will  facilitate the  access  of the local  agro -processing industry to  international market s .   During his assignment ,  h e assi