Today we bring you another installment of our local volunteer highlights! This Q&A is with Dr. Emmanuel Opoola, national volunteer for the Nigeria F2F project. Dr. Opoola worked with remote U.S. volunteer, Stephen Bullen, to develop a syllabus and training materials on-farm management and trained the host’s agricultural team on how to use the developed training materials to enable them to further the trainings to their beneficiary farmers.

What was the best part about contributing to Farmer–to–Farmer as a national volunteer in your country/ region?

As a national volunteer, I had the privilege to meet new people. I had the opportunity to connect to the host community, remote-based volunteer and broaden my support network, exposing me to people with common interests, neighborhood resources, and fun and fulfilling activities.  The best part was to have played my role in providing local cases to support the development of training modules and other materials and in visiting the host location to personally deliver training on strategic/tactical farm management planning and setting up a recording-keeping system.

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

Valuable connections and relationships were established with the remote US-based volunteer. The best part was that I had the chance of combining my training experience on-farm management and that of the US-based volunteer synergy for delivering a better package to the participants.

What did you learn/were there any cultural exchanges with the US volunteer and/or your host?

Developing new skills; discovering new passions, gaining insight about myself and the world around me. Now, I feel more comfortable stretching my wings at work after I have honed these skills in working with a remote US-based volunteer. There were cultural exchanges with the US-based volunteer in areas related to strategic analysis and comparing new enterprises.

What lasting impact did volunteering with Winrock have on you?

I have learned important skills to be used in my workplaces, such as teamwork, communication, problem-solving, project planning, task management, and organization.

As the Asia Farmer-2-Farmer Project comes to a close after 5 years, we sent a volunteer to facilitate a Learning Workshop with some our amazing hosts in the country of Bangladesh. Below are some of Dr. Henderson’s Lessons Learned: 

In August 2018, I traveled to Bangladesh to facilitate an in-country workshop as part of the final-year impact and lessons learned analyses for the Asia Farmer to Farmer (F2F) program funded by USAID and Winrock International. I had the opportunity to work with the Bangladesh F2F team located in Dhaka, the capital of the country. Eighty-four participants from different government organizations, universities, national and international NGOs, donor-funded projects, and private sector agribusinesses attended a “Host Learning Workshop.”  The primary objectives of the workshop were to A) summarize successes and innovations, as well as ongoing challenges, and discuss lessons for how to sustain and build on F2F impacts/ initiatives and B) enable participants to hear and learn from each other and to make connections/network with each other. The F2F team did an outstanding job of organizing the host learning workshop; I was very impressed with the dedication and professionalism of Dr. Kabir and his staff; they were a joy to work with! It was obvious that the team had spent many hours preparing for the workshop; their attention to the little details that ensure a successful program was evident. Through my volunteer assignment, I strengthened my ability to serve as a “master of ceremonies” for a workshop; gained a better understanding of Winrock’s F2F Program, including a general overview of the program and the specific work in Bangladesh; and acquired new friends and colleagues.

Facilitating the Panel Discussion

Dr. Henderson surrounded by Asia F2F Team for Bangladesh

Winrock International invited me to volunteer in Bangladesh as part of the Farmer-to-Farmer Program funded by USAID.  In Bangladesh, the Farmer-to-Farmer program engages skilled American volunteers to provide training and technical assistance to support youth entrepreneurship in the agriculture sector and to strengthen agricultural education and training institutions.  My assignment was to visit local beef cattle fattening farms and locally available feed sources to assess the existing status, practices, problems, and opportunities to improve practices of beef fattening activities in the community, and to conduct two 3-day trainings on improved beef fattening for the host staff and youth group members with a focus on youth entrepreneurship development.  The Rural Reconstruction Foundation (RRF) hosted me, as part of its mission to seek and accomplish “the comprehensive development of underprivileged men, women, youths, and children towards understanding a civil society with respect of full democracy, liberty, equality, justice, peace, and solidarity”.

This was my first Winrock volunteer experience, my first visit to Bangladesh and my first visit to Asia. I enjoyed Bangladesh since the day of my arrival in Dhaka City.  During my assignment, I visited farms, worked with farmers, and participated in the two three-day training for the youth beef fattening group members.  I value and admire the great interest shown by all participants to enhance their beef fattening knowledge and make of it a mechanism to improve their lifestyles. All farmers that we visited were very attentive to our recommendations on how to improve their production system. They wrote the recommendations on animal management, feeding practices, and animal comfort.

Visiting local beef farmers at Jessore District, Bangladesh

The RRF technical staff and the beef farmers showed a great attitude during the 3-day training sections. All participated actively during the training, asking many questions. The RRF staff showed critical-thinking and problem-solving skills, especially during the ration formulation exercises where we used local feed resources to formulate beef cattle diets.

Training RRF technical staff in beef cattle diet formulation using local resources

RRF Beneficiaries – Beef Fattening for Youth Entrepreneurship Development

Professionally, I will share this experience with my colleagues from the Faculty of Agricultural Sciences of the University of Puerto Rico and encourage them to volunteer in this type of activities.  I will also share this experience in the classes that I teach to undergraduate and graduate students of at the University of Puerto Rico. It is very important for the student population to know about how volunteering aboard can improve the livelihoods for so many youths around the world.

In closing, I really appreciate the new relationships I have acquired with people from the RRF and Winrock International. My special and personal gratitude goes to Mr. Badal Golder, Project Manager Specialist, Winrock International, and Mrs. Shahnaz Begum, Assistant Director, RRF, for their friendship and professional support during the activities. This experience, working with Winrock International in Bangladesh, has enriched my life and I feel it has empowered my career.  After 22 years of teaching Animal Sciences, I believe that a higher education degree is not complete without the experience to be a volunteer and have the ability to help and transfer to people the knowledge that we have had the opportunity to acquire during our life.

Preparing for a Farmer-to-Farmer assignment, my third in Mali and twelfth overall, created a sense of excitement and anticipation. Bara Kassambara, Winrock Country Director for Mali, is a F2F professional who makes every aspect of an assignment go smoothly for volunteers. Over time, Bara and I have become very good friends, beginning with my first trip to Mali in 2011. Bara was even able to visit me here in the U.S. in 2012. Perhaps the greatest value for a Winrock volunteer is the relationships formed while on assignment.

Bara & Doug in Arkansas in 2012

The Scope of Work for my 2017 Mali project used a smart, efficient approach, called Train the Trainers. This approach greatly leverages the knowledge and skills of any volunteer. In 2016 a similar approach was used by me on a previous assignment in Senegal resulting in regional trainers for all of Senegal being trained in one location. This model of training is very cost effective and reaches farmers and small business owners more rapidly than other methods.

The 2017 Mali assignment took my team of pros to four training sites in the south of Mali. At each of the 4 sites, the basics of “Marketing of Agricultural Products” was taught over a 2-3-day schedule, depending on electricity. Crops included cowpeas, par-boiled rice, sesame, and fish. Packaging and branding are almost non-existent for the cooperative members in Mali. Samples of foreign produced products were used to show the impact of packaging, branding, and logos. Without these basic marketing functions being met, advertising cannot take place. Trainers were trained in the basics of sales forecasting, record keeping, costing, pricing, profit & loss calculation, and preparation of a Business Plan to be used for sourcing financing.

Outcome success is measured by evidence of the development of modern packaging, branding, and logos in the marketplace. I cannot give enough praise to my teammates Bara, Fatou, Fatouma, and Hadey. Because of Winrock, I feel more connected to the world and have gotten so much out of volunteering. Americans have so much of what we have been given to give to others.

On February 9, 2018, Farmer to Farmer (F2F) volunteer, Teresa Morris, arrived in Abuja, Nigeria on her first visit to the country and her first F2F assignment; to provide a training-the-trainer workshop in Developing Curricula and Training of Trainers in Farm Administration and Management to Nehemiah Foundation International.

Dr. Morris is a soil scientist who works with the Natural Resource Conservation Services (NRCS), USDA as an Organic Farming Area Specialist. She also works as an Adjunct Professor at the Saint Louis University; teaching beginning soils to graduate and undergraduate students for the Earth and Atmospheric Science Department. Dr. Morris was kind enough to write the below about her experience: 

I was thrilled when I received an email inviting me to join the volunteer team of Winrock International. My credentials matched me with a volunteer position in Kaduna, Nigeria working with small acreage farmers interested in sustainable farm management. The Host for this project was Mr. Emmanuel Nehemiah of the Nehemiah Foundation.

As I learned more of Mr. Nehemiah’s vision for local farmers to support Kaduna’s community I became excited about the development of the training. The focus of the training was agriculture that incorporated ecological principles with the development and building of organic matter related to on-farm money. I refer to this method as “farming as a banking system” and soil organic matter is the currency. I began the training by showing the farmers the actual nutrients and money associated with 1% organic matter. This idea caught their attention and from there the training was off and running.

During the four day training, we visited local farms and discussed methods of farming that would retrain and build soil organic matter. The farms were beautiful as were the farmers. I was honored to learn from them and share what I have learned from my career as an agriculturalist and as an educator in soil health and ecological farming. The challenges these farmers faced was tough. Lack of tools, weather, seed, and working with pastoral grazing were just some of the everyday tasks on their list and yet they produced a crop every year.

Back in the classroom, I showed slides of soil science technology and ecological farming methods. As the day progressed, we as a group discussed the science as well as the methods to assure everyone understood how farming using soil ecology was cost effective and would save them money as well as restoring their natural resources. Each day of the training was filled with lively discussions regarding how Kaduna could adopt ecological farming and work together to provide produce to the local community. It was wonderful.

The whole experience was life-changing. I truly enjoyed working with the farmers and the Nehemiah Foundation to formulate a practical manual for guidance on ecological farming. I also enjoyed showing the farmers how the production of soil organic matter would save them money.

Upon leaving, my new friends of Kaduna welcomed me back in the future, which I would enjoy!

Very Best,

Teresa Morris, PhD