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August 2014

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Winrock’s 2013 Global Projects & Financial Statement is now available. This annual report provides a financial account of the organization, as well as a summary of projects and their global impact.

The Agriculture Education and Market Improvement Program (AEMIP) has released a request for applications in Guinea focused on the following objective: "the AEMIP Grants Program will improve knowledge and awareness of climate change and its effects on agriculture and agriculture-dependent populations." Applications must be received by Sept. 30. Click here for complete details.

Bill Collis of the Knowledge-based Integrated Sustainable Agriculture and Nutrition (KISAN) project explains in this video how farmers in Nepal are earning more from high-value vegetables in the off-season. USAID’s KISAN is a five-year Feed the Future initiative in Nepal, implemented by Winrock.

Winrock’s Kevin Brown was featured as part of an online conversation and debate on palm oil, titled “We need to talk about peat.” Brown’s contribution explains why we need a landscape-wide perspective on palm oil as a part of policies designed to mitigate global climate change, and is related to an analysis Winrock International did in 2013 for the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO).

Wallace Center at Winrock International Director John Fisk shares how food value chains are creating shared value and helping consumers step up as citizens.

The National Good Food Network will present a free webinar, Putting Local on the Menu: Five Best Practices and a Cost Calculator Training, on Sept. 4. Register now.

The Winrock-implemented Cambodia Counter Trafficking in Persons program, funded by USAID, recently produced a short film about trafficking on fishing vessels, Where is the Horizon? In the video, three survivors share their stories. A screening of the film will be part of a September 13 event in Phnom Penh at the Bophana Center at 5 p.m.

The Cambodia Counter Trafficking in Persons program provides trafficking survivors with a range of support services. This video, Changing Lives, tells the stories of three survivors pursuing successful livelihood activities in their communities.

Utah State University featured Winrock volunteer Dale ZoBell last month. ZoBell had recently returned from Dhaka in Bangladesh, where helped expand the animal science curriculum for the International University of Business, Agriculture and Technology (IUBAT).

Winrock’s Mary Renwick was part of a U.S. Water Partnership webinar on July 31 that explored integrating WASH (Water, Sanitation and Hygiene) and freshwater conservation with case studies from Tanzania. Watch the webinar here.

Winrock International under the USDA-funded Philippine Cold Chain Project (PCCP) has inaugurated a $1.7-million dollar farmer loan fund guarantee program in cooperation with First Community Cooperative. The loan fund will enable Winrock-trained farmers and fishers to access credit for food production, while decreasing the normal collateral requirements for these loans. Earlier this month, BusinessWorld featured PCCP in an online story: CARAGA banks on cold chain supply project.

Interested in working at Winrock? Search current openings and post your resume. Would you like to volunteer with Winrock? Learn more about new opportunities.

 David Pearce values connections made across two decades of volunteer assignments
David Pearce grasps the hand of Village Chief Souleymane Samake.Over two decades, farm owner David Pearce has completed 43 volunteer assignments in 14 countries for Winrock International, most often with the USAID-funded Farmer-to-Farmer (F2F) program. A recent recipient of the Presidential Lifetime Volunteer Service Award and the Volunteers for Economic Growth Alliance “Volunteer of the Decade” award (honorable mention), Pearce is a dedicated and dynamic volunteer who has made countless, lasting connections with beneficiaries and staff around the world. Recently, Pearce took some time to reflect on his volunteer experiences.

You’ve done so many assignments with Winrock over the years. What keeps you going back?
The people; the folks that I get a chance to meet from different cultures. As the saying goes, we are drawn together by similarities and bound together by differences. That is true to my experiences. We are called on for a similar interest in agriculture. There are lots of differences, cultural bases, demographics, economics, etc., but when you finally sit across the table and have finished what you’ve done, and you see a smile on the face or a tear in the eye, you know you’ve connected. That can’t be replaced. You can’t buy it with a dollar bill or a rupee. That kind of thing only happens with two human hearts, and that is priceless.

What are some of your favorite memories?
Continue here for more of David’s reflections.

Forest community members-turned-researchers boost forest & wildlife protection
Thourn SrowThourn Srow’s family has suffered in recent years. Traditional rice farming was not producing enough to feed his family of six, which led him to poach wildlife — including an endangered species of gibbon — in his struggle to make a living. For additional income, he collected resins in the forests surrounding his village of Andong Kraloeng in Cambodia’s Mondulkiri province.

Aiming to reduce deforestation, the USAID Supporting Forests and Biodiversity Project facilitated a series of educational training programs about the importance of forests and wildlife to residents in the village. Srow, who participated in the training, began to realize the damage he was causing by hunting and killing endangered animals. He stopped hunting wildlife and concentrated on harvesting resin for his income. He also took time to educate others, especially village children, about the negative consequences of poaching wildlife.

Because of his increased awareness and desire to conserve resources, Srow was asked to join a gibbon research team, and was trained how to track gibbons, while recording their movements using modern research tools. He still spends his days in the forest, but now his purpose is to conduct research and record the habits of yellow-cheeked crested gibbons as part of an ecotourism initiative for his village.

“Thanks to USAID, I have learned how important animals and forests are for the people in my village,” Srow says. “Now I protect the animals and forests. Every day tourists visit our village to see the gibbons. This helps all of us to earn better incomes.”

He adds, “If we protect the animals, they can actually help us create jobs by delivering ecotourism services and help us in preserving our way of life.”

Wallace Center, American University and USDA release Food Value Chains report
FFRI farmer check-inThe Wallace Center at Winrock International, in collaboration with USDA’s Agricultural Marketing Service, and American University, has released a new resource, Food Value Chains: Creating Shared Value to Enhance Marketing Success. This report provides guidance on how food value chains are initiated and structured, how they function, and the benefits they provide to participants. The report encourages the adoption of a value-chain approach, where opportunities for successful collaboration exist among organizations with compatible principles and complementary areas of expertise.

Food value chains represent a business model in which producers and buyers of agricultural products form strategic alliances with other supply chain actors, such as aggregators, processors, distributors, retailers and consumers, to enhance financial returns through product differentiation that advances social or environmental values. Central to the notion of food value chains is that transparent and trusting relationships between supply-chain partners can produce positive, win-win outcomes for all parties. This model, in particular, is gaining traction because it responds to agricultural and food industry consolidation that has placed intense market pressure on small and mid-sized farmers.

To learn more about this innovative business model, read the full report.
       


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