Growing Knowledge & Building Partnerships

In February, the Farmer-to-Farmer program in Jamaica received the last in-person assignments before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic caused a disruption in operations due to travel restrictions. One of the last two in-person assignments in the island country was with Minard Estates, a large cattle breeding operation that specializes in Jamaican beef breeds like Black, Brahman and Red Poll. Minard Estates is run by the Agro-Investment Corporation, an agency under the Ministry of Commerce, Agriculture and Fisheries located on 160 acres of an old slave estate in the parish of St. Ann. They have increasingly found that the effectiveness of their operation has been hampered by the lack of operating tractors and equipment. They wanted to know if the repeated mechanical failures of the tractor were due to the workers’ lack of skills to operate and maintain the equipment, and therefore requested a F2F volunteer to train the staff at Minard Estates in the correct operation of tractors and h

In May of 2020, an association of Dominican rabbit breeders wanted to broaden its rabbit-based products, apart from rabbit fillets. To help them explore new value-added goods, a F2F volunteer was requested to train the breeders in the value-added processing of rabbit products. CEPROR (Centro de Educación y Promoción Rural) is an education center located in Villa Tapia, La Vega that was first founded as a mother’s club and in 2009 became an association. It currently has approximately 40 members who work on its goat, rabbit, and duck farms; some of whom also teach technical courses for the students that attend the public school right next to it. The chosen volunteer for this assignment was Mr. Robert Spencer, a small-animal specialist and rabbit breeder from the Alabama Cooperative Extension System. Due to the global COVID-19 pandemic, Mr. Spencer could not travel to the Dominican Republic and had to complete this assignment remotely from his home in Alabama. During this four-month assig

In September 2020, after two months of work, we finished our first remote assignment in Colombia with Crezcamos and Kyla Persky. Crezcamos is a microfinance institution that advocates for the financial inclusion and training of low-income populations in Colombia. Their products and services are divided into two types: financial services and protection solutions. Crezcamos also offers training services on basic finance and smallholder farming to its clients. The aim of the assignment was to help Crezcamos improve its use of technology to capture, manage, and analyze its client data.  Kyla Persky is a Fintech and microfinance specialist that helped the host with their digital transformation. Kyla analyzed the advantages and disadvantages of the digitalization of their products, ran a pilot to help Crezcamos communicate with new clients via WhatsApp, and worked with their call-center staff to outline and streamline the digital process. At the end of the assignment, Kyla submitted a comple

  The Guyana Innovation Prize Start-up Bootcamp provides farmers with training in the Lean Start-up Method for agribusiness and business development, helping them develop business skills in addition to their high-level farming experiences. A F2F volunteer was requested by the Guyana Economic Development Trust to support the Bootcamp’s instructors alongside staff from the School of Business and Entrepreneurship (SEBI) at the University of Guyana to help participants develop an agri-business plan/model.  The chosen volunteer was Gaston Tsompo, who holds a BS in Economic and Quantitative Techniques, an MBA, and is currently a candidate for a Ph.D. in Business Administration Project Management. He works for a company that works towards increased US trade relations in Africa, and before that worked for an NGO in partnership with stakeholders in Africa, Latin American and the Caribbean where he prepared business plans utilizing Logical Framework tools.  Gaston met virtually with each of th

Like many countries, Guatemala has been seriously affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. The immediate effects have been more severe on perishable products such as deciduous fruits, which are mostly produced by smallholder farmers in the Western highlands of Guatemala. Several Farmer-to-Farmer hosts have implemented different actions and measures to mitigate the impact of the pandemic on small producers and at the same time facilitate their access to markets.  This is the case of the National Association of Deciduous Producers (ANAPDE) that, given the uncertainty and restrictions of many of their associates to the local and regional markets, decided to host the first virtual peach fair in August 2020. The focus was on the Salcajá variety of peach because it was bred in the region in the late 1960s, and nowadays is being recognized internationally for its quality. There were several activities such as virtual orchard tours, online cooking classes, webinars, and cultural tours. In the online

In Myanmar, the expanding avocado industry needed technical assistance to improve the drip irrigation and fertigation system designs that affect the reliability of fruit set and high crop yields. To help improve the current state of the industry, the Myanmar Avocado Producer and Exporter Association (MAVO) requested a F2F volunteer to review the current use of irrigation and fertigation in orchard management, and to determine if the trees were receiving the nutrients required for high fruit quality and yields.  Dr. Jonathan Deenik and Jensen Uyeda completed this virtual assignment together. Dr. Deenik has a Masters and PhD in Soil Science and is currently the Chair of the Department of Tropical Plant and Soil Sciences at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. Mr. Jensen Uyeda has a bachelors and Masters in Tropical Horticulture and is currently an Assistant Extension Agent at the same university. Mr. Uyeda provided training on the practical aspects of irrigation and fertigation systems, in

Dr. Roger Ellis, a Doctor of Veterinary Medicine who currently works as a field veterinarian for the New York State Department of Agriculture and Markets, volunteered with the Farmer-to-Farmer Program in Jamaica in November 2019. He taught staff from the Ministry of Agriculture and Minard Estates Farm about Artificial Insemination (AI) techniques, procedures, and skills. During his assignment he reviewed farm plans and handling facilities and carried out theoretical and practical training on reproductive tract examinations, rectal palpation and breeding gun placement  Dr. Ellis also made both theoretical and practical demonstrations of how technology can help the farm and visited supporting institutions such as the AI Laboratory in Bodles St. Catherine to have a discussion with the AI Technician responsible for the parish of St. Ann, where Minard is located. Dr. Ellis had various consultations during his packed schedule to assess the adaptability of Minard to AI and made recommendation

“ Seeing you reminds me we are not alone. ” That is what one Dominican Republic producer told Dr. Donald Schwartz when he volunteered with Farmer-to-Farmer (F2F) in June 2019.  For two weeks in the Dominican Republic, Schwartz worked with the organization, Bananos Ecológicos de la Línea Noroeste (BANELINO), meaning “Ecological Bananas for the Northwest Line” in English. BANELINO seeks “to improve the living conditions of small producers, workers, their families, and the community” by providing technical assistance services to associates, marketing, and certifications. BANELINO now has 336 producers in its membership.  Dr. Schwartz assessed the impact of the last decade of BANELINO’s efforts and conducted a benchmark/gap analysis of the organization’s 2014-2019 strategic plan. He also assisted BANELINO in developing necessary tools and processes to ensure the economic, social, and environmental sustainability of the organization. He did this by hosting a workshop, giving an in-depth di