Growing Knowledge & Building Partnerships

Pictured above from left to right: F2F Field Officers Franqui Linarez and Maria Montas, F2F Volunteers Patricia Algara and Cesar Cahusac  Last year, Patricia Algara was invited to the Dominican Republic to consult with APEDI and Fondo Agua Yaque del Norte through Partners of the Americas’ USAID-funded Farmer-to-Farmer Program. In their effort to promote education and conservation of the Yaque del Norte River's natural resources they want to build a interactive scale model of the entire watershed at the Parque Central in Santiago so that people can better understand the importance and magnitude of the river and the impacts that urban and agricultural pollution is having on its waters.  The Yaque del Norte River Basin is the most important one in the Dominican Republic, with an extension of 7.053 km², equivalent to a 14.6% of the national territory. It impacts around 1.8 million people in 40 different municipalities from six different provinces. It has a length of 296 kilomete...

  Mr. Dan Miller, a volunteer of the Farmer to Farmer program and an expert on small ruminants, supported Centro de Educación y Pomoción Rural (CEPROR) in Dominican Republic on October 2021. The purpose of the assignment was to assess the current state of the community’s goat production and conduct training in the best practices for goat husbandry and management. The CEPROR is located in Santa Ana, Villa Tapia, Hermanas Mirabal province, Dominican Republic.   Climatic conditions in the area do not vary tremendously during the year with temperatures above 20ºC and under 35ºC all year and precipitation of varying amounts during the year with no month being completely dry. Changes in day length are also minimal so there is no effect of day length on breeding season. Thus, there are no significant seasonal changes to deal with as in other tropical countries. Climate change is affecting previously reliable weather patterns.   The CEPROR has 40 members who work with g...

Our first volunteer for the 2019-2023 F2F cycle was Melanie Forstrom! Melanie traveled to the Dominican Republic in February of 2019 to support our field office staff in defining the Youth in Agriculture Development (YAD) country project strategy that will be implemented during the cycle. Melanie has 14 years of experience in youth education and experiential learning, including work with homeless undocumented youth and alternative high school youth. She has led 4-H programs since 2011, including a public speaking training and evaluation program, and science and tech mentoring programs serving youth under-represented in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) careers. She has served as a F2F volunteer on several occasions in the past. During the two weeks of her assignment, she gave two presentations to young farmers and met with different hosts like BANELINO , Plan Yaque , and Fundación REDDOM . Melanie gathered data through stakeholder interviews, focus groups, and d...

Banelino is an organic Banana association founded in 1996 by seven small banana producers from the province of Montecristi, in the northwest of the Dominican Republic, very close to the border with the Republic of Haiti.  Banelino is made up of more than 330 small producers who own an average of three hectares and sell about 35,000 boxes of bananas per week. 95% of their production is organic and 90% is certified as Fair Trade. They have established a Banana School (Escuela Bananera) to teach its local farmers and other interested youth how to grow bananas. However, their teaching manual needed to be updated to ensure it was computer friendly and more interactive for the students. Therefore, in mid-2019 Banelino requested a F2F volunteer to update their teaching materials and convert the manual’s contents into an e-learning platform. The chosen volunteer for this assignment was Shireen Lakhani. She holds a Masters in Instructional Design and Technology with a certificate in e-learning ...

In the Dominican Republic, changes in rainfall patterns result in soil erosion and lost harvests, affecting rural agricultural families. To help ameliorate this problem, a F2F volunteer was requested to train smallholder banana producers in the northwest of the country in two major areas: the restoration of depleted soils through the addition of organic matter, and the strengthening of farming plots against extreme weather events that can cause erosion of fertile soils. The host for this assignment was Bananos Ecológicos de la Línea Noroeste (BANELINO), an association that seeks to improve the living conditions of small producers, workers, their families, and the community by providing technical assistance to its associates. Currently, BANELINO is comprised of more than 330 producers. It is an established and well-managed organization, with strong leadership, knowledgeable and dedicated field technicians, and supportive and involved members. Dr. Hwei Yiing Johnson was chosen to fulfill...

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...

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...

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...

“ 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...

Review meeting with volunteer Peter Phillips, APEDI director Saul Abreu, Fondo Agua Yaque del Norte director Walkiria Estevez and F2F field officer Gabriela Rosa. The Yaque del Norte Basin is the most important hydrographic basin in the Dominican Republic, with an area of more than ​​7,000 square kilometers, equivalent to 15% of the national territory. It affects 40 municipalities within six provinces in the Central Cibao and Northwestern Cibao regions, where approximately 1.8 million people live. The main river that gives its name to this basin is the Yaque del Norte, the longest in the Dominican Republic, with a route of almost 300 kilometers from its source in Jarabacoa, in the Central mountain range, to its mouth in Montecristi. Because of its importance, many organizations work towards the conservation of this river and basin. The Farmer-to-Farmer (F2F) Program in the Dominican Republic has been working with two special ones: The first one is Fondo Agua Yaque del Norte, an a...

Due to the impacts of the COVID-19 virus and travel restrictions around the world, in-person Farmer-to-Farmer (F2F) volunteer assignments have been on hold since March 2020. Partners of the Americas’ F2F decided to use this opportunity to innovate by initiating remote assignments. This has resulted in new opportunities for our hosts, including new organizations we had not worked with before. And what is more exciting than a new host with their first assignment? A volunteer completing three assignments at once with a new host!  Rebecca Roebber is a seasoned F2F volunteer and expert in cacao sourcing and marketing who worked several years in Ecuador for a cacao company. She recognized the quality of Dominican cacao and was happy to support Natural Hispaniola, a family enterprise that started organic cocoa production and processing about two years ago. Prior to COVID-19, they had hoped to increase in-person sales of their protein bar, EnergyKAO, however, the pandemic forced them to e...

Shireen talking to Gustavo Gandini from the Biodiversity department, in November 2019. Bananos Ecológicos de la Línea Noroeste (Banelino), a banana cooperative in the Dominican Republic, has developed a Banana School (Escuela Bananera) to teach farmers and interested youth how to grow bananas. However, their manual for teaching needed to be updated to be more interactive with students as well as computer friendly. To update their teaching materials, Shireen Lakhani traveled to the Dominican Republic in November of 2019 to support Banelino through the Farmer-to-Farmer program. She uploaded two of the manual’s seven modules into an e-learning platform to ensure that the future generation of farmers will be able to use the updated materials to learn more autonomously.  More recently, in May of 2020, Shireen decided to continue supporting Banelino remotely, as a response to the travel restrictions due to COVID-19. She is teaching Banelino staff how to use e-learning modules more effect...

ISA University , located in the city of Santiago de los Caballeros, is a higher education center known for its commitment to environmental, natural, and agricultural education. A F2F Volunteer was requested to complement the entomology knowledge of university students and high school Biology teachers through training sessions and workshops.  In October 2019, Mario Moratorio, a doctor in Entomology from the University of London and Farm Advisor Emeritus from the University of California Cooperative Extension supported Universidad ISA in the Dominican Republic with this Entomology teaching assignment. He taught students and teachers basic entomology concepts that will be very useful for their degrees and work during daily training sessions. He also held classes on the taxonomy of different insects and gave a final talk to 68 teachers called “Entomology as a door for teaching environmental sciences”.  At the end of his assignment, Dr. Moratorio recommended that ISA...

Dr. Elon and ISA students visiting an Asian vegetable exporting association A lack of knowledge and experience when it comes to research has resulted in difficulties in the formation of professionals in the Dominican Republic. ISA University, located in Santiago de los Caballeros, was not fulfilling its potential or capacity for impact in Dominican research, despite being known for its specialized degrees in farming, natural resources and education.  Elon Gilbert, who has a PhD in Economics from Stanford University, volunteered through Farmer-to-Farmer in September 2019 by training professors and outstanding students from ISA University's Business School. He taught them to design quantitative and qualitative studies, write research articles or papers, and select research instruments and methods of data analysis.  Dr. Gilbert has over 50 years of international experience associated with FAO, the World Bank, USAID, private foundations, governments, and NGOs; with a ...

Field officer Rafael Marte, volunteer Kenneth Andreis and communitarians from Puerto Plata after receiving assistance in goat production, hygiene and feeding. In July 2019, the Dominican Republic’s Farmer-to-Farmer Program received two wonderful volunteers in swine and goat production management. The host, Caritas Dominicana, is an NGO created by the Conference of the Dominican Episcopate to serve the most vulnerable people and groups, with the aim of improving their living conditions and building a society based on justice, fraternity and peace.  Dr. Kenneth Andries, an  Associate Dean of the College of Agriculture, Communities, and the Environment  at Kentucky State University with a PhD in Animal Genetics arrived in the DR as a goat production management volunteer. And Guilherme Prezotti, a veterinarian of Brazilian origin with a Master’s degree in Animal Science from Texas Tech University, traveled to the DR to complete a swine production management assignmen...

Gregory Whitis showing farmers how to identify the sex of tilapias A group of young men from La Cuchilla municipal district, in Villa Altagracia, Dominican Republic, decided to take advantage of the abundant river waters nearby by starting small pisciculture ponds. Sadly, in the beginning, their results were not what they expected. Volunteer Gregory Whitis, an aquaculture expert with more than 35 years of experience, visited the Dominican Republic last December to trach tilapia farmers from the communities of Los Conucos and La Represa best practices to make their production more sustainable and profitable. His training included site selection, feeding, growing-out and sorting, record keeping, and other general recommendations for tilapia farming.  Farmers learning how to identify turbidity levels with a round bucket and a stick. A meeting with the Instituto Dominicano de Investigaciones Agropecuarias y Forestales (Dominican Institute of Agricultural and Forestry...