Farmer to Farmer


The Farmer-to-Farmer Program promotes sustainable economic growth, food security and agricultural development worldwide. Volunteer technical assistance from US farmers, agribusinesses, cooperatives, and universities helps developing countries improve productivity, access new markets, build local capacity, combat climate change and conserve environmental and natural resources. Farmer-to-Farmer also aims to increase the American public's understanding of international development issues and programs and international understanding of the U.S. and U.S. development programs.
F2F volunteers work with farmers, producer groups, rural businesses and service providers to develop local capacity necessary to increase food production and rural incomes, expand economic growth, and address environmental and natural resource management challenges. This people-to-people exchange promotes international goodwill, understanding of US foreign assistance programs and private involvement in development activities.
The F2F Program is funded by the US Agency for International Development through the US Farm Bill to assist developing countries, middle-income countries, emerging markets, sub-Saharan African countries, and Caribbean Basin countries to increase farm production and incomes.

History

The Farmer-to-Farmer Worldwide Program was initially authorized by Congress in the 1985 Farm Bill and funded through Title V of Public Law 480. Congress authorized the current FY2013-2018 phase of the program, designating it the "John Ogonowski and Doug Bereuter Farmer-to-Farmer Program." John Ogonowski was the pilot of one of the planes that crashed into the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001; the project's name honors his extensive work with immigrant Southeast Asian farmers using his land in rural Massachusetts. Retired Congressman Doug Bereuter was the initial sponsor of the program.
The Farmer-to-Farmer program celebrated its 30th anniversary in 2015.
More than 16,000 volunteers have served since 1985.

Volunteers

Farmer-to-Farmer Volunteers are American farmers and agriculture experts dedicated to improving our world. Farmer-to-Farmer Volunteers donate their time and expertise to provide technical skills to farmers in the developing world. Volunteers often partake on short term assignments focusing on specific tasks to yield high impact. Farmer-to-Farmer Volunteers can be found across the globe, from Zambia to Bangladesh, El Salvador to Bulgaria working on projects from marketing management to beekeeping, produce packaging to governance. To learn more about Farmer-to-Farmer volunteers and read their stories, . If you are interested in volunteering, .

Results

The F2F program has demonstrated significant impact through high-quality services from volunteers. Volunteers help individuals and organizations build local institutions and linkages to resolve local problems and since 1985 have provided direct hands-on training to over 1.2 million people. In the last five-year program alone, volunteers assisted their host organizations to increase annual sales by over $442 million and raise annual incomes by $132 million. The program leveraged over $31 million worth of volunteer time contributions to development efforts and mobilized $40 million from assisted local host organizations. Nearly 1 million farmer families directly benefitted, and approximately 37% of all individuals trained were women. Since program initiation, nearly 16,000 volunteer assignments have been completed in more than 110 countries.

Current program

USAID has awarded cooperative agreements to six organizations for implementation of the core F2F volunteer programs for international agricultural development for September 2014 – September 2018. The program will extend services to 26 core countries, providing more than 3,000 volunteer technical assistance assignments averaging three weeks each. An additional Special Program Support project will fund volunteer activities with new implementing organizations and special activities. The six program implementing organizations will work closely with overseas USAID Missions and local partner organizations, supporting a variety of development programs aimed at reducing poverty and stimulating sustainable and broad-based economic growth. The core program agreements allow USAID country programs to provide additional funding for agricultural development projects using F2F volunteers.

Implementers

Each F2F award is global in nature but implements core country programs in a specific region or technical area
F2F emphasizes achieving economic impact and measurable results by concentrating volunteer assignments in specific geographic areas, commodities programs and service sectors. Programs go beyond simply placing volunteers on an individual basis and focus on developing specific market chains for which overall impact can be evaluated. Programs build institutions and transfer technology and management expertise to link smallholder farmers with markets that make use of comparative advantages in production, processing and marketing. Volunteers typically work with medium and small agro-enterprises, cooperatives, individual producers, agricultural extension and research agencies, and financial institutions.
Major areas of program focus are: horticulture, dairy and livestock, staple food crops, producer organization development, financial services, marketing and processing, agricultural education and training, and natural resources management.

Special Program Support Project

Farmer-to-Farmer includes a Special Program Support Project to test innovative approaches for use of volunteers, draw from non-traditional volunteer sources, develop capacity of non-traditional volunteer organizations, and address niche agricultural sector problems. Special projects will be implemented by voluntary technical assistance organizations as sub-awards.
SPSP provides opportunities for new partners to participate in the F2F program while offering USAID Missions another mechanism for integrating volunteer technical assistance into their activities.
The manages SPSP. VEGA builds the capacity and encourages the participation of new F2F implementers. VEGA mentors new organizations, beginning with support during the grant-writing process, and helps organizations meet USAID program, activity, and reporting requirements. VEGA also supports learning in the wider F2F community, gathering and disseminating knowledge to strengthen the overall program.
Accomplishments of F2F SPSP to date:
The SPSP program gathers and disseminates success stories, best practices, and lessons learned from all F2F implementers and SPSP sub-grant implementers. VEGA works with partners to promote the F2F program to the American public; to continue to evolve best practices in agricultural volunteer programming; and to build the capacity of new organizations involved in the F2F program. VEGA also manages knowledge sharing through the F2F web portal at www.farmer-to-farmer.org. The site is used to disseminate F2F success stories and lessons learned among current implementing partners, volunteers, beneficiaries, and USAID.

Capacity Development

VEGA builds the capacity of new organizations and encourages F2F participation of minority-serving organizations and institutions, small NGOs, diaspora organizations, specialized technical networks, and universities. To build the capacity of organizations, VEGA conducts capacity development activities, including sub-grants, and also maintains the Farmer-to-Farmer portal.

Sub-Grant Management

Sub-grants for the SPSP include Program Development Projects and small grants. Each PDP is a full F2F program in a specific country or thematic area that helps to develop the capacity of the implementing organization to carry out larger-scale volunteer programs. The small grants fund activities to address country specific or thematic areas, specific volunteer target groups, and/or innovative ways of programming volunteers. Small grants involve organizations not currently implementing core F2F cooperative agreements or SPSP PDPs. Program oversight, mentoring, training, and program visits provided by VEGA ensure that sub-grant implementers are successful and that the F2F brand is maintained.

Countries with Projects Under Current F2F Cycle{{Cite web|url=http://farmer-to-farmer.org/resources/farmer-farmer-fy2016-annual-report|title=Farmer-to-Farmer FY2016 Annual Report farmer-to-farmer|website=farmer-to-farmer.org|language=en|access-date=2017-03-29}}

ACDI VOCA
Catholic Relief Services
CNFA
Land O'Lakes
Partners of the Americas
Winrock International
VEGA Program Development Project
VEGA SPSP Sub-Award Projects

Caribbean Basin

For more information, please visit: http://farmer-to-farmer.org/