From the Guatemala Highlands: Smallholder Farming Solutions

The Project:

This project aims to effect sustainable change in Guatemalan smallholder farming practices by improving the dissemination of agricultural information. We believe that this can be done by improving the knowledge of project planners and agricultural extension agents about the current information transfer chain and new potential opportunities within that chain.

How?

We will use small working group discussions and key informant interviews to assess how farmers obtain agricultural information, which methods of information transfer are most trusted and effective, and the potential of information communication technologies to improve the spread of agricultural information. Following our work with farmers, we will conduct further participatory research with Guatemalan agricultural professionals to learn how they share information, and identify areas of overlap with the tools we have evaluated. We will then develop a set of concrete recommendations about effective dissemination of agricultural information, which will be shared through a training module created for use at the Horticulture CRSP Regional Center of Innovation at Zamorano in Honduras. Project results will also be communicated to the in-country USAID mission in Guatemala and NGOs through direct conversations, and will be backed up by additional promotional materials.

Kelsey Barale, graduate student, International Agricultural Development, UC Davis
Elana Peach-Fine, PhD candidate, Plant Pathology, UC Davis

Comments

Welcome to the UC Davis Blum Center Blog!

Here you will find updates on our organization, and blog posts written by each of our Blum Fellows about their experiences abroad. Make sure to check out our website at blumcenter.ucdavis.edu, and like us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/UCDavisBlumCenter to get regular updates and see our upcoming events.

Manufacturing in Phnom Penh by Purva Juvekar

During winter and spring quarter 2017, my teammates and I (Team WASHOut) designed a sanitation station using a Biosand Filter. This was our effort towards providing clean water to students in floating schools on the Tonle Sap lake. We were provided with the opportunity to go to Cambodia and implement our project in person through the Blum grant, and we worked with Wetlands Work!, our clients for the senior design class. Figure 1 Rendering of Sanitation Station We spent our time at UC Davis designing the station – sketches, CAD models, renderings, dimensions, engineering analysis and testing. We made a prototype in Davis, which we showed during the Senior Design Showcase in June, to test flow rates and water quality standards. The next step was to take the design to Phnom Penh and manufacture it there. We got to work as soon as we got there. My teammate and I were introduced to people on the WW! team who could help with translation, and we began scouting the city to fin...

Pedaling for Water in Kisumu: Closing, By Abe McKay

Pedaling for Water in Kisumu: Closing (3 of 3) 2017.09.12 In my second week in Kenya, I was back to visiting farmers, both with Vibrant Village and through other connections. However, I receive my biggest surprize in between site visits. I was walking with Ernest Kulali, a field officer and farmer from Vibrant Village, and he was telling me about the effectiveness of farming techniques. Using traditional methods, Ernest was getting 20kg of maize (corn) in a season from his shamba , his farm . When he switched to using purchased seeds and fertilizer, the same land produced 360 to 540kg of maize. What!? I had him run the numbers by me again, 20kgs → the range of 400kgs. I still didn’t believe it, but Nick the Vibrant Village director later agreed that farmers were seeing that magnitude of increase. Not just doubling their income/food supply, but a twenty-fold return! Further farming modifications will not yield as large a jump, but that sort of scale encouraged me that changing te...

UC Davis Blum Center for Developing Economies

Search This Blog