Celebrate National Volunteer Week!
ACDI/VOCA Volunteer Experts Use Technical Skills to Create Global Impact
During National Volunteer Week (April 10–16) we salute the hundreds of volunteer experts who extend our impact every year. Each day this week we are recognizing one or more ACDI/VOCA volunteers who strengthen our international development projects.
These noted professionals from various fields donate their time and expertise in developing countries to a spectrum of stakeholders—women and men, farmers and entrepreneurs, community groups and local leaders, cooperatives and associations, small banks and businesses—as part of ACDI/VOCA's work to create a world in which people are empowered to succeed in the global economy.
DAY 1: Volunteers Doherty and Eyman Build Capacity of Producer Groups and Local Staff
DAY 2: Volunteers Cooperrider and Devore Assist Farmers in Staple Crop Production
DAY 3: Volunteers Hylton and Kebe Provide Livestock Expertise
DAY 4: Horticulture and High-Value Crop Specialists Share Expertise, Cost-saving Technologies
DAY 5: Fresh-Produce Experts Assist Post-harvest Handling, Marketing
DAY 5: Fresh-Produce Experts Assist Post-harvest Handling, Marketing
First-time volunteer Dr. Adel Kader traveled to the West Noubaria area of Egypt in September to teach post-harvest technologies that help smallholder farmers reduce losses and increase profits. Dr. Kader systematically met with local growers, exporters, extension agents and key specialists to identify critical pre- and post-harvest production practices that have negatively affected returns. From this information and his experience as a post-harvest specialist at the University of California, Davis, he developed a five-day course on post-harvest technologies that he conducted for 56 participants. He covered many of the subjects he teaches at UC-Davis, including product quality, harvest and storage, harvest maturity and pre-harvest production. His course caught the attention of the minister of Agriculture and Land Reclamation, who attended the first day of the course and welcomed participants. The minister lauded the efforts of ACDI/VOCA’s Farmer-to-Farmer program and our partners, the Union of Producers and Exporters of Horticulture Crops and the West Noubaria Rural Development Program.
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Volunteer Dr. William Rice in Ghana works with carrot producers on marketing best practices. Photographer: ACDI/VOCA |
In May and June, Dr. William Rice volunteered his international marketing experience in Ghana to assist that country’s Carrot Growers and Marketers Association (CAGA). An expert from California State University, Fresno, who also traveled under ACDI/VOCA’s Farmer-to-Farmer program, Dr. Rice worked with the association to improve their produce marketing skills and otherwise build business capacity. He trained 211 cooperative members, of whom 80 were women, on how to improve production, reduce transport costs and stabilize prices. He introduced a planting tool that allowed producers to use less seed, immediately lowering costs. In addition, he trained them on how to reduce carrot waste during transport, stagger production, grade produce and regulate quantities sent to market. Using Dr. Rice’s recommendations, the producers are now selling graded and sorted carrots in smaller bags and fetch higher prices for improved quality. This was Dr. Rice’s 9th volunteer assignment with ACDI/VOCA since 1999. His previous service was in Ethiopia, Mongolia and Uganda..
DAY 4: Horticulture and High-Value Crop Specialists Share Expertise, Cost-saving Technologies
Liberia’s high-value horticulture industry, like many others, collapsed during the protracted civil war. The lack of production of desirable vegetables—tomatoes, sweet peppers, carrots, lettuce and Chinese cabbage—has resulted in the need to import poor quality, expensive substitutes.
First-time volunteer Vicki Morrone travelled to Liberia in November to help address this market disruption by advising farmers and extension technicians on growing these crops at scale. Morrone trained the producers to systematically select varieties based on growing conditions and market demands. She taught best practices, such as how to increase production through proper soil preparation, crop rotation and weed, disease and insect mitigation. Through expert technical assistance and individual production plans Morrone helped the farmers prepare for themselves, she equipped them to seize a promising market opportunity.
Volunteers Dave Adams and Michael Adams have played major roles in Egypt working with smallholders to increase production and profits through simple, low-cost technologies as part of ACDI/VOCA’s Farmer-to-Farmer efforts.
Dave Adams, a retired horticulture extension agent and veteran volunteer with more than 40 assignments, recently provided technical assistance to several farmer groups in Egypt’s Nubaria region in soil fertility and productivity. When he learned the farmers were not sending samples to the local soil and water analysis lab, he proceeded to conduct a seminar on the importance of using accurate test results to determine soil deficiencies and plant needs. On a follow-up assignment Dave trained the lab technicians to give the farmers more detailed and more useful recommendations. ACDI/VOCA’s Global Development Alliance project in Egypt now uses that lab to collect and test samples from other production areas.
Michael Adams, an entomologist with a wide range of research, industry and academic experience, also traveled to Egypt on an ACDI/VOCA assignment. There he revised existing pesticide applicator training materials, designed updated materials and provided ideas for tests to be administered to operators and applicators for certification. When he returned for a second assignment, he developed a pesticide-handling project framework to serve as a template for training and licensing significant numbers of pesticide applicators, dealers and master trainers through a program administered by ACDI/VOCA and Crop Life.
DAY 3: Volunteers Hylton and Kebe Provide Livestock Expertise
Libanvet is a company in Lebanon’s beautiful Bekaa Valley that provides veterinary services to livestock producers. However, diseases constrain the development of the local livestock sector, and the company was hard pressed to meet modern standards of care especially given that there were no diagnostic laboratories and no professional hospitalization, much less surgery.
To help overcome these obstacles, ACDI/VOCA volunteer Walter Hylton, D.V.M., fulfilled two assignments in 2010 to upgrade Libanvet’s services. Dr. Hylton, who had previously volunteered in Russia, traveled in June through ACDI/VOCA's Farmer-to-Farmer program to review Libanvet’s general veterinary surgical equipment and practices, make recommendations and train its veterinarians on general livestock surgical procedures and disease detection. He returned on a follow-up visit in December and conducted more training. As a result, 500 cows in the dairy sector will be saved annually—representing $525,000 in savings—due to earlier diagnosis. Dr. Hylton is scheduled to return at the end of April to help Libanvet establish a veterinary diagnostic laboratory.
In Liberia, almost 15 years of civil war decimated the country’s livestock population. Liberia’s Ministry of Agriculture requested assistance from ACDI/VOCA to formulate a livestock restocking plan. Volunteer Soulemayne Kebe responded to this request and travelled to Liberia for his first ACDI/VOCA volunteer assignment in October and November 2010. A Mauritanian trained in the U.S., Kebe is a livestock expert with extensive experience in West Africa and the Middle East.
Working with the ministry’s staff and coordinating with the Ag Sector Rehabilitation Program, Souleymayne drew up a detailed restocking plan that emphasized sound herd expansion through producer training and supervision. It includes breeding plans and breeding stock selection, and involves relevant nongovernmental organizations and private sector companies. Trainings will be conducted on feed and nutrition, reproductive management and veterinary care. A Farmer-to-Farmer volunteer assignment to help improve livestock breeding is planned for the summer of 2011.
DAY 2: Volunteers Cooperrider and Devore Assist Farmers in Staple Crop Production
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Volunteer Bob Cooperrider in Ghana on a seed volunteer assignment. Photographer: ACDI/VOCA |
Bob Cooperrider's assignment in Ghana last June through ACDI/VOCA's Farmer-to-Farmer program turned into a long-term commitment. He was asked to assess the machinery at the Ghana Seed Inspection Division (GSID) facility in Tamale, where seed is cleaned for the vast northern region's grain producers. Finding the seed cleaner decrepit and basically inoperable, Bob's only recourse was to provide a cost analysis to restore it, including pricing on a new machine and costs for linking it to a reliable supplier. He identified immediate measures that allowed the facility to prepare and certify seed from the 2010 harvest to meet the needs for the next year. Through additional efforts by Cooperrider, GSID received $10,000 from the Millennium Development Authority for immediate equipment repairs and upgrades. Cooperrider assisted in the equipment procurement and shipment from the United States, United Kingdom and Germany, and returned himself in late February to refurbish the seed cleaner. During that trip, he trained eight GSID technicians to service the balky, old machine with the new equipment. The machine, which hadn't functioned since the 1980s, is currently cleaning seeds for local farmers.
The assignment was Bob's second with ACDI/VOCA. He is no stranger to the seed and produce industry. Since the mid-1970s, he has produced organic grain and vegetable seed for customers in the continental United States, Hawaii and Japan. He was founder and first president of the Oregon Organic Growers' Association, where he acted as a liaison with governmental and educational institutions on issues concerning member organic growers.
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Volunteer Archie Devore talks with Lebanese farmers about forage production. Photographer: ACDI/VOCA |
When Archie DeVore departs for Lebanon on April 25, it will be his 2nd trip to Lebanon in a year and 11th assignment for ACDI/VOCA. DeVore travelled twice to Jordan in 2010 and completed 7 previous assignments in Russia. He is an experienced dairy management specialist with more than 35 years of teaching, advising and consulting dairy producers in areas of ration balancing, feeding, facility design and layout, financial management and budgeting, labor management and training, and herd health.
DeVore's recent work in Lebanon and Jordan through ACDI/VOCA's Farmer-to-Farmer program has centered on forage production. Working with the AKKAR cooperative in Lebanon, he recommended irrigation techniques and conducted a harvesting and disease assessment, resulting in a 50 percent improvement in production for the 30 farmer-members. His recommendations to the AIDCO cooperative on selling corn silage using total-mixed-ration techniques resulted in a 15 percent increase in profit.
Forage producers in Jordan typically lack knowledge about fertilization, irrigation and pest control. They also need better forage varieties and more economical forage machinery. In addition, since most of the forage producers are livestock farmers, they benefit from expert advice on the use of forage crops for improved animal production and increased incomes. DeVore made practical, realistic recommendations for the producers on corn silage production, storage, processing and marketing, in addition to alfalfa production, weed management and fertilization. These recommendations have increased production while lowering costs and improving feed formulations.
DAY 1: Volunteers Doherty and Eyman Build Capacity of Producer Groups and Local Staff
Beginning with his first assignment in Ethiopia in 2000, consultant Ed Doherty has volunteered for ACDI/VOCA 13 times, working with local staff and stakeholders in organizational development and capacity building. His assignments have taken him to Asia, Central Asia, East Africa and West Africa, and have ranged from training in communication for conflict prevention and mitigation for our field staff to capacity building, business management and business plan development for producer groups. Doherty worked in East Timor on conflict mitigation training related to land issues following the nation's civil war and independence movement to help prevent further violence.
Most recently in Egypt through ACDI/VOCA's Farmer-to-Farmer program, he taught three courses to producer groups in communication, team building, leadership and negotiation skills. His sessions attracted more than 50 farmers and association members in southern Egypt and 25 extension agents in the north. Participants avidly took part in role playing and discussions and ultimately requested additional training from Doherty in skills development and association management.
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Volunteer Bill Eyman conducts a workshop on budgeting and bookkeeping in Ghana for two citrus producers assocations. Photographer: ACDI/VOCA |
William "Bill" Eyman completed his 26th ACDI/VOCA volunteer assignment in February 2011. Since 1992 he has donated his time in a variety of skill areas related to farm management including recordkeeping, farm credit, capacity building for credit cooperatives, and farm financial and business planning. He has conducted countless training sessions on assignments that have taken him to Central and Eastern Europe, Central Asia, Russia, East Africa, Armenia and West Africa. A former bank president experienced in agricultural lending and a farmer himself, he easily adapts to foreign cultures and has successfully trained producers as well as agricultural lenders on sound business principles and planning.
His most recent assignment took him to Ghana through ACDI/VOCA's Farmer-to-Farmer program to conduct workshops for two local citrus producers associations and to train a co-op member to continue the work with follow-up refresher courses. ACDI/VOCA-Ghana staff remarked, "Bill was very effective and his trainings enhanced the farmers' budgeting and bookkeeping activities, which resulted in easy access to financial assistance. As a result, 23 of the 27 members of one of the citrus co-ops were able to repay their loans ahead of schedule!"
