In October 2021 the West Africa Farmer-to-Farmer (F2F) project in Ghana was invited to present a brief statement in the Eastern Region, Koforidua; at the maiden two-day Eastern Commodity Satellite Market Fair, organized by the Regional Agricultural Department of the Eastern Regional Coordinating Council on the theme: “Developing the Eastern Commodity Satellite Markets: The Role of Agro-input Dealers and Processors.” 

Country Director, Mina Lassey, gives a statement at the Eastern Commodity Satellite Market Fair

New packaging developed with help from F2F Volunteers

The Regional Agricultural Department has the mandate to foster market linkages for smallholder farmers, processors, and aggregators under the Modernizing Agriculture in Ghana (MAG) Program. The region adopted the development of commodity satellite markets as its main strategy to ensure that farmers have access to markets. Under this initiative, each District Agricultural Department was tasked with a responsibility to facilitate the branding and selling of at least one agricultural commodity in which they have both competitive and comparative advantage. Farmer-to-Farmer (F2F) volunteers April Thompson and Molly Hamilton trained the Department of Agriculture on branding, packaging, and labeling of rice. The neatly and beautifully packed products at the fair were the results of the F2F volunteer assistance. The Country Director of the F2F project pledged their continued collaboration with the MAG secretariate and the Department of Agriculture to increase income and livelihoods of farmers, agro-processors, and support the agricultural sector in general.

Farmer-to-Farmer Ghana Country Director, Mina Lassey, helps cut the ribbon

The Eastern Regional Minister, Hon Seth Kwame Acheampong, officially opened the fair and commended the Department of Agriculture for the job well done. He also greatly commended the USAID-funded West Africa Farmer-to-Farmer Project for the support to the agricultural sector.

• What was the best part about contributing to Farmer-to-Farmer as a national volunteer in Ghana

Having a Farmer-to-Farmer national volunteer in Ghana is a very innovative approach that enables us to use our professional experience to practically support the host to improve on what they are doing and their livelihoods.

In my assignment as a national volunteer, I was able to communicate in the local languages that made them fully understand the training. The trainees were also able to ask many questions to clarify their understanding because all the participants could speak the local language which avoided the communication gap that happens when translation had to be done.

I used local examples and illustrations that they knew and made it very practical to the extent of bringing pineapple fruits to the training classroom to demonstrate to them and also giving the opportunity to do it themselves that made the training easier to understand.

The host and farmers bonded easily and had a high level of trust and confidence with me so they shared in depth experiences with me that helped me to gain more insight into their challenges and made me adapt the training to address their needs.

After the training sessions, the host and cooperative members felt that they have benefited a lot because the training was done in their local language, was very practical, hands on and full of comprehension.

Farmers on farm tour with Winrock

• What was the best part about working with a remote US based volunteer

Working with a US based volunteer gives you the opportunity to work as a team and each professional brings his/her experience to bear. Also, gives the opportunity to blend these experiences to support the host to improve in the way they do things.

Further, the team work and writing the end of assignment together helped each volunteer to learn from each other also improve his/her professional experience.

• What did you learn/were there any cultural exchanges

The assignment further improves working relationship in a multicultural environment.

David during the training sessions

• What lasting impact did this have on you

I have done some volunteer assignments alone in the past, and this was the first time for me to work on an assignment with a US Volunteer. This assignment helped me to gain some insights into the professional way of handling some technical issues in the US.

I also saw the responses from the host and cooperative members who felt greater impact of the Farmer to Farmer volunteer assignment will be done if national professionals are given opportunity to offer their professional experience and expertise to support host organizations.

April 18^th to the 24^th is National Volunteer Week in the United States which gives us all a chance to stop, reflect, and shine a light on the people and causes that inspire us to serve. As North America awakens to spring and the sense of a renewed optimism, what better time to take a moment and recognize the volunteers who share their time, talent, and treasure to build a more connected global community.

Over a year ago now, the world entered into a profoundly challenging, unforeseen, and tumultuous moment in time. The rise and eventual spread of COVID-19 across the globe profoundly impacted every nation, industry, and way of living. Many people have referred to 2020 as a “dark” or “lost” year. We cannot deny the immense struggle or burden felt by people from every walk of life. And yet, that truth only makes the efforts of Winrock’s volunteers during the past year that much more remarkable.

As airports around the world shut their doors, American volunteers did something amazing- they adapted and continued to support international communities. At Winrock International, technical expert volunteers, primarily through the USAID Farmer-to-Farmer (F2F) Program, raised their hands and offered their effort to find a new way to help those in need. Through the use of real-time video-conferencing technology and partnerships with local experts, American volunteers put proof to the quote that “all failure is failure to adapt, all success is successful adaptation.” Demonstrating a remarkable resilience and creativity in the face of difficulty, Winrock volunteers successfully blazed new pathways to connect and collaborate, directly improving the lives of thousands of individuals in rural communities across the world.

One such beneficiary, Mr. Karamo Fofana, a member of a community development group in Guinea, West Africa, noted that: Today, I am 1,000 kilometers from the capital where the Winrock training is being held, the American trainer is in the United States, his Guinean counterpart is in a room with a group in the capital, there are others are all over Guinea joining, learning, and participating; We work as if we were all together in the same room. Really, this is a first and an innovation for us. To this end, we are very grateful to Winrock Farmer-to-Farmer and the U.S. Government, which is sparing no effort to accompany us during this period of COVID19. Thanks to new technologies, we can be everywhere and work together”.

This week, we take a moment to stop and say thank you to the volunteers who brighten the world.  Despite the personal and professional setbacks, we all faced over the past year, so many have lifted their light and showed us that all challenge is really just a hidden opportunity.

Here are some of our volunteers in action over the past year. If you feel a calling to serve in a similar capacity, there are many opportunities listed at www.winrock.org/volunteer.

“If our hopes of building a better and safer world are to become more than wishful thinking, we will need the engagement of volunteers more than ever.” — Kofi Annan

This quote from Kofi Annan really resonates, given everything that our world is facing these days. AND – it’s National Volunteer Week! Now, more than ever, I think we can all benefit from inspirational examples of American volunteers making an impact around the world.

In the last year, Winrock engaged 70 volunteers on assignments in nine countries, primarily through the USAID Farmer-to-Farmer (F2F) Program. These volunteers donated a collective 1,400 days of time to 59 host organizations, lending their skills and expertise on topics ranging from agricultural production and processing to curriculum development and pedagogy, to business planning and financial management. They have empowered farmers and entrepreneurs; strengthened training institutions and schools; improved quality, diversity, and safety of food products; and directly improved the lives of thousands of individuals in rural Africa and Asia.

This week, in particular, we celebrate these noble and meaningful efforts.

Here are some of our volunteers in action in the last year:

Volunteer, Dr. Hameed, shows off the mushroom pizza the Mushroom Producers Association made together in Ghana

Volunteer Kerry Richards and a local farmer practice plant transplanting in Guinea

Volunteer Gary Wingenbach visits demonstration plots and research project on the campus of Adeyemi College of Education in Nigeria

Volunteer Olumide Mitchelle Makanjuola poses with the women of AFSM and AWLAE in Mali after her workshop on building successful business practices

Volunteer Dr. Kassama works with CLCOP women to create enriched flour to sell in Senegal

In addition to imparting valuable – and oftentimes, critical – technical knowledge to enable people to improve their livelihoods, our volunteers also contribute to increased cross-cultural understanding, building a bridge between our countries and reinforcing human connections.

Many of our volunteers stay in touch with their host organizations and field staff after the end of their assignment. It’s been heartwarming to see an increase in this outreach during the coronavirus crisis, with volunteers and field staff reaching out to each other with concern and solidarity and to deepen the bonds that they formed over the course of their assignments. Especially now, these are such important reminders that we are all in this together.

THANK YOU, volunteers, for your generosity, kindness, hard work, expertise, and perseverance. You have made a difference, in more ways than one.

And though we are currently pausing international volunteer travel due to the global coronavirus pandemic, we are anxious to continue to serve our beneficiary communities around the world. We hope to resume travel later this year – and as always, open volunteer opportunities will be posted on our website: www.winrock.org/volunteer.

Greetings from our Farmer-to-Farmer team here in the USA! Our U.S.-based team is incredibly grateful for our dedicated country staff, skilled volunteers and welcoming program hosts across the globe, without whom our work providing solutions for some of the world’s most complex social, agricultural, and environmental issues would not be possible. Enjoy this account of an international team coming together, along with country hosts, to continue our path forward in achieving our mission. Thank you! 

In November 2019, Winrock International organized a Farmer-to-Farmer Regional Meeting to reflect on the past year of implementation and plan for the upcoming year. This meeting, which took place in Senegal, marked my first time traveling to West Africa, and the greater African continent. The opportunity to participate in this meeting came because I work alongside colleagues in both our West African offices as well as our stateside offices in planning for, recruiting, and mobilizing U.S. volunteers to bring technical assistance to projects across West Africa through the USAID Farmer-to-Farmer Program. Though I have been working on the project since January, this marked my first opportunity to begin meeting our country staff who work on the project.

In Senegal, we were joined by our entire Senegal team, as well as all our country directors from Ghana, Guinea, Mali, and Nigeria. As we came together to discuss successes, challenges, and plans for the coming year, we shared laughter, meals, and more about ourselves with each other. As we discussed the program, the key themes for working together were flexibility, communication, and partnership. While this project is international, the same themes that make work successful on a local scale are also the keys to working with an international team. Having extensive time face to face with the country staff made all the difference in helping to more clearly understand their daily context on the ground in the countries we are working in. It also helped to build relationships with my colleagues – as being face to face for a week provides opportunities weekly or biweekly meetings by phone or video do not. Our week together in Senegal was full of learning – both in sessions in a meeting room and in field visits with hosts we have and continue to work with. In our meetings together we had sessions led by each of us that ranged from growing local partnerships to increasing our recruitment of experts as volunteers. During our field visits, we learned how our host organizations have grown and adapted their work as a result of volunteer assignments and recommendations and learned about continuing needs to be addressed by future volunteers. We visited several vocational training centers in Guinea that utilize our volunteers to train their staff and students, but more widely to increase technical knowledge and skills for their communities as a whole.

Following my time in Senegal, I traveled to Guinea with my colleague from the National Peace Corps Association, a sub-awardee under Winrock’s Farmer-to-Farmer project, and we spent 4 days with the Guinea office planning for the year, building relationships, and visiting hosts. Returning home and reflecting on my time in West Africa I am grateful for the hospitality of our country staff in both Senegal and Guinea, as well as our hosts who we visited in both countries. I am grateful to have better relationships with country staff, as well as more context for on the ground logistics in West Africa, which will help me to be a better recruiter and mobilizer for U.S. volunteers to assist with projects across West Africa as part of the program. I am excited for what the year ahead holds.