Growing Knowledge & Building Partnerships

The Sabaneta Women’s Group is an association founded in 2013 by the community of Sabaneta, in San José de las Matas, Dominican Republic. It is currently composed of 10 members, who usually meet once a month to discuss key points, work on sustainable communal projects and reforestation, and organize interesting lectures. They also have a small savings group that includes children, youth and men. Since the beginning, they have grown and developed several coffee products and in 2019 decided to start a project focused on strawberry and vegetable production to diversify plantation areas. They allocated approximately 1,000 square meters of land in a greenhouse to strawberry production.  Strawberry cultivation is very dynamic that has many variables. Quality fruits can be grown in a period of eight months, between 800 and 1,300 meters above sea level, with optimal conditions taking place between October and May. In mid-2019, the Sabaneta Women’s Group requested a Farmer-to-Farmer voluntee...

Campesino Specialty Coffee is a Colombian company sourcing specialty coffee directly from smallholder farmers in Antioquia. To fulfill their mission of providing long-term solutions to coffee communities, they have a direct relationship with producers, providing complete transparency and upholding sustainability at the farm level. They started in 2016 in the town of Jericó, Antioquia with five dedicated farmers and have grown to over 120 producers. By focusing on quality, they have been able to increase the return to their producer partners and provide a higher-quality coffee to their roaster partners, creating a sustainable business operation for all parties involved. To further increase the impact in the community, they have launched a Coffee Education Center in Jericó, to provide continuing coffee education to their producer partners, their families, and the coffee community  To improve their financial situation, they requested a local and a remote F2F volunteer to evaluate t...

The demand for honey in Guyana has rapidly increased as people seek healthier sweetener options, causing a shortage of beekeepers in the country relative to market demand. To accelerate the entry into beekeeping for aspiring Guyanese farmers, a F2F volunteer was requested by the Guyana Livestock Development Agency (GLDA) to help them train its personnel in disease management and apiary inspection.  The GLDA is the single institution mandated by the Government of Guyana to implement and coordinate the implementation of livestock development activities. It aims to promote greater efficiency in the livestock product industry and the control of animal movement into and within Guyana to prevent the introduction and spread of animal diseases.  Dr. Michael Goblirsch was the volunteer selected for this assignment. Dr. Goblirsch holds a Ph.D. in Entomology from the University of Minnesota where he oversees the Technical Laboratory of the Bee Research Facility and teaches various subjec...

El 18 de diciembre de 2020 se llevó a cabo el segundo webinar con la Agrocadena Ovina de Guatemala, donde el tema fue "Beneficios, Ventajas y Mercado de Carne de Oveja en el Mundo y Potencial de Producción en Guatemala".  Las conferencias fueron impartidas por los voluntarios de Farmer-to-Farmer Roberto Castillo, Licenciado en Zootecnia y Máster en Energía y Ambiente de la Dirección de Desarrollo Pecuario del Ministerio de Agricultura, Ganadería y Alimentación de Guatemala (MAGA); Homero Salinas, Doctor en Ciencia Animal y Especialista Estatal en Pequeños Rumiantes de la Universidad de Lincoln en Missouri; y por Jorge Maldonado, Investigador Titular del Instituto Nacional de Investigaciones Forestales, Agrícolas y Pecuarias (INIFAP) y estudiante de Postgrado del Colegio de Postgraduados Campus Montecillo de México.  Se contó con la participación de productores caprinos, estudiantes y organizaciones interesadas en el desarrollo de la caprinocultura en Guatemala. Estos webinars...