Growing Knowledge & Building Partnerships

The Ever Win Coffee Factory is a Myanmar coffee company that produces 12 types of coffee products and provides training on coffee making. They wanted to develop new products to become more competitive in the coffee and tea markets, and thought of producing a new line of black teas, as they have the raw ingredients available. To expedite this product development, a F2F volunteer was requested to help Ever Win staff develop formulas and processes for the creation of black tea products, advising them on the processing and the ingredients to be included.  The recruited volunteer was Mr. Manik Jayakumar. He is originally from Sri Lanka but has been living in the USA since 1989. In Sri Lanka, he managed six award-winning tea estates and helped pioneer organic tea farming. In 1994, when he was living in California, he founded QTrade Teas and Herbs which is now the largest importer of organic tea in North America and one of the largest tea producers in the USA. He has worked at QTrade f...

Banelino is an organic banana association located in the province of Montecristi in the Dominican Republic, very close to the border with Haiti. It was founded in 1996 and is made up of more than 335 smallholder farmers who own an average of three hectares. They recently developed a sustainable chicken production inside of their banana fields to promote biodiversity and diversify farmer incomes. In August 2020 they requested a F2F volunteer to help them design a logistical plan to transport the live birds from the farms to be slaughtered and processed, and for the chicken meat to be delivered to consumers.  The chosen remote volunteer for this assignment was Dr. Jacqueline Jacob. She has a BSc in Poultry Management, an MSc in the sudden death syndrome in male broiler chickens and a PhD in poultry diets. She has widespread experience in poultry extension in the broiler and egg industries, youth, small flock, and alternative poultry production enterprises (including organic productio...

Una de las estrategias que el programa Farmer-to-Farmer Guatemala ha empleado para llegar a los agricultores y productores agropecuarios en esta situación global, es la implementación de webinars con organizaciones de productores donde el interés por aprender sigue estando latente. Es claro que el campo sigue produciendo y por lo tanto la necesidad y el entusiasmo por crecer siguen siendo constantes.  En Guatemala, uno de los modelos de organizaciones que más ha mantenido su auge es el de las agrocadenas. Desde marzo del 2020, el programa Farmer-to-Farmer en este país ha apoyado a la Agrocadena Caprina de Guatemala, posteriormente a la Agrocadena de la Tilapia y ahora a la Agrocadena Ovina.  Los participantes de las conferencias han agradecido el apoyo que el programa Farmer-to-Farmer, en conjunto con las agrocadenas, han brindado, adaptándose a horarios en los que les es posible a los productores tener un espacio para aprender de forma virtual. Es por eso que el pasado 4 de d...

Rios de Chocolate is a cacao association comprised of 185 families, located in Santander, Colombia. These families do not have a common buyer and therefore sell individually. Their goal is to obtain a homogeneous fermentation of their cacao beans to be able to export their products together. Currently, they produce fine flavor cocoa, dry cocoa beans, chocolate liquor and chocolate. In June 2020 they requested a F2F volunteer to help them understand the opportunities and risks of selling to the U.S. market. Sharath Patil, a lawyer and supply chain management specialist with extensive experience in international trade, was the chosen volunteer. He started working remotely with Rios de Chocolate in late July and met with them virtually ten times. During the assignment, Sharath trained them on topics such as:  Understanding the U.S.-Colombia Trade Relationship The U.S.-Colombia Trade Promotion Agreement Trade Flows and Market Access U.S. Destinations of Colombian Cocoa Exports Value of...

Mr. Michael Fraser is the founder of Delhana’s Family Farm in Guyana’s Mahaica-Berbice region. He is a retired social worker who always had a passion for agriculture. Without having a technical background in science, he was still eager to pursue his passion, no matter what. After retiring, Mr. Fraser thought that it was time to bring his dreams to reality.  In 2017, he organized his children and grandchildren, and together they launched Delhana’s Family Farm. Delhana’s Family Farm is a medium-size farm that employs ten people from within the community of Mahaicony, Region 5. They produce soursop, peanuts, passion fruit, black eye peas, bananas, and plantains; all of which are marketed within the community and at supermarkets.  One of Mr. Fraser’s visions is for his farm to become organically certified. However, there were areas that called for some improvements, including the production of compost and organic pesticides, and integrated pest management. Bearing this in mind, Mr...

Between November 23rd and 25th, 2020 the Farmer-to-Farmer program in Guatemala held an online certification training on Preventive Control for Human Food, the second of this type in Guatemala. This online workshop will certify 11 young professionals from Guatemala and two members from the Haiti government as Preventive Control Qualified Individuals (PCQI).  This online certification is part of a food safety assignment with Guatemalan host Yogi Super Foods (YSF), which wants to obtain an organic accreditation to sell in the US market. YSF is a Guatemalan social enterprise that specializes in superfoods and has been in business since 2014. The workshop serves as a roadmap for YSF to use the new tools and resources received during the training such as worksheets, workbooks, templates, and manuals to outline its own food safety plan.  The certification was facilitated by Dr. Aliyar Fouladkhah, an Assistant Professor at Tennessee State University, who is also the Director of the Pu...

From June 15 to 26, 2020, F2F Volunteer William S. Nichols completed a Marketing and Branding assignment with the Hopone Coffee Cluster under the Myanmar Coffee Association. He trained its affiliated producers to use marketing strategies and branding to expand their consumer network and improve their coffee promotion. There were 27 participants; 18 men and nine women who work as managers, community facilitators, marketing staff, processors, etc. The training included an introduction to marketing, promotion, negotiation skills, branding, and finding prospective new customers.  The Hopone Coffee Cluster is comprised of four companies/cooperatives: Green Gold, Indigo Mountain, Mudra and Naung Kham Kaung Ron since December 2018. The objective of the Hopone Coffee Cluster is to produce high quality, unique and natural coffee and share market information with its affiliated members.  F2F Volunteer Bill Nichols has more than 30 years of experience teaching and working in marketing ma...