Volunteer Stories
Robert Bond
Nepal
Asia Farmer-to-Farmer Program
This article was originally published by Catholic Relief Services, CRS.
Name: Robert (Bob) Bond
Current title/profession: Volunteer, Consultant
Current hometown: Weaverville, North Carolina
Areas of expertise: Sales and Trade Marketing
ASSIGNMENT OVERVIEW
Name of project: Asia Farmer-to-Farmer Program
Location of the project: Nepal
Organization that sent the volunteer: CRS
VOLUNTEER IMPACT
Bob Bond, a consultant from Weaverville, NC, traveled to Nepal for 2 1/2 weeks in April to share his technical skills and expertise with local farmers. His assignment is part of Catholic Relief Services’ Farmer-to-Farmer program that promotes economic growth, enhanced nutrition through access to healthy food, and agricultural development in Nepal.
"My recent trip to Nepal in April 2019 was my 29th volunteer F2F project over the past 15 years and my first to the country. With a sales and marketing background rather than farming, I was delighted by the opportunity to help strengthen horticulture value chains in order to stimulate productivity of small and medium scale farmers, and improve income and living standards for them, their families, and their communities" said Bob.
The goal of Bob’s assignment was to design cooperative supply chain marketing strategies and techniques to increase profit by increasing efficiency. He worked with 59 farmer beneficiaries who will implement recommendations with their own retail stores, Kathmandu retail grocery chains, and support programs for their 995 small farmer coops with 970,200 household members covering over 92% of Nepal’s districts. Most of Bob’s time was spent in the Kathmandu area, working with the NACCFL (Nepal Agriculture Co-operative Central Federation Ltd.) membership organization.