News

NCBA CLUSA's Farmer-to-Farmer Project in Cacao

| NCBA CLUSA

On Valentine’s Day, millions of people around the world buy chocolate for their loved ones. But as we share this holiday treat with our friends, partners and families, it’s important to understand where chocolate comes from.

Ecuador has a unique native variety of cacao beans known as Arriba or …

This World Food Safety Day, U.S. Volunteer Lends Expertise in Food Safety to Georgian Communities

| Dr. Aliyar Cyrus Fouladkhah, ACDI/VOCA Volunteer

Dr. Aliyar Cyrus Fouladkhah is faculty director of the Public Health Microbiology Foundation, based in Nashville, Tennessee. He is a graduate of the food science and human nutrition master’s and food microbiology doctoral programs of Colorado State University, from which he also holds a graduate certificate in applied statistics and …

RECRUITER, STUDENT, FARMER

| Michael P. Pascual, Grameen Foundation

I own and operate a small family farm in the Philippines called Bukid Iluminada, which I started in 2018. Since then, we’ve grown our husband and wife team to a small number of four farmers who help with land preparation, harvesting, and general maintenance. My wife and I handle operations, …

Pandemic Stories from a Field Operations Officer

| Ronald Lim, Grameen Foundation

In March 2021, a year after the COVID-19 pandemic hit, my visits to Farmer-to-Farmer Capacity-Building of the Coconut Subsector (F2F COCOS) host organizations in some parts of Mindanao in the Philippines finally resumed. Naturally, I was worried about contracting the virus and had to continuously adjust travel plans due to the …

Farmer-to-Farmer Celebrates its 2021 Volunteer of the Year Award Winners!

| IESC & Land O'Lakes Venture37

The global USAID-funded Farmer-to-Farmer (F2F) Program and community celebrate the resiliency and unwavering dedication of our volunteers every day. Without them, our program impacts would not be possible. This became increasingly evident during the COVID-19 pandemic when program activities abruptly came to a halt, prompting the adaptation of implementation of volunteer …

Food Science Faculty Provide Value-Added Food Product Training to Trinidad and Tobago Rural Women’s Group

| Nyssa Lilovich, Purdue University

Purdue University’s International Programs in Agriculture (IPIA) and Purdue Extension are home to the USAID John Ogonowski and Doug Bereuter Farmer-to-Farmer (F2F) program implemented in Trinidad and Tobago (TT). The F2F TT program seeks to improve food and nutrition security through productivity, safety and profitability as well as growing the extension …

Farmer-to-Farmer Supports Sustainable Livestock Systems in Jamaica and Guyana

| Partners of the Americas

Livestock is a critical part of sustainable agriculture that international development projects must address to advance livelihoods globally while simultaneously protecting Earth’s precious natural resources. Since 1991, Partners of the Americas (POA) has worked on the USAID-funded Farmer-to-Farmer Program (F2F), which aims to improve the sustainable use of natural resources through …

Advantages of Remote Volunteering

| Grameen Foundation

Written by Nancy Wells, F2F Volunteer

The year 2020 provided an unforeseen opportunity for Grameen Foundation to validate its own program delivery risk mitigation plans. The Farmer-to-Farmer COCOS team in the Philippines had spent several years building volunteer engagements with expectations of tightly scoped deliverables …

If you Guild it, they will come: F2F Guatemala’s unique approach to virtual extension support with small ruminant associations during the pandemic

| Partners of the Americas

Written by Otto Rivera, F2F Field Officer in Guatemala. This article was originally posted here.

Guatemalan smallholder farmers were hit especially hard by COVID-19’s impact on agricultural value chains. While many do not have access to technical assistance and training during normal conditions, the pandemic worsened this isolation as …