Last week, several Volunteers, their community counterparts and even members from local government agencies met in the small town of Chichica, high in the hills of the Comarca Ngäbe Bugle, for the first Agro-Business (AgBiz) Seminar of 2012. It was a huge success!
This was a volunteer-led, organized, funded and executed initiative, without much involvement from the office. This is something that we do on our own but with the obvious approval from headquarters. The funding came from friends and family at home through a Peace Corps Partnership grant which allowed us to pay for expenses such as travel, supplies, room and board for the participants. Volunteers stayed with the Peace Corps Volunteer (PCV) who is living and working in Chichica and counterparts who had to travel stayed with local host families.
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| The road to Chichica |
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| The classroom portion of the seminar took place inside this school |
Thank you very much for all of you who donated to the seminar. Your support allowed us to facilitate the collaboration of farmers, volunteers and agencies in improving farmer’s ability to organize, produce, market and improve their harvests.
This seminar was located in the Comarca and almost all of its participants were indigenous. Many of the themes of the seminar were tailored to the local and make examples more relevant and easier to understand.
So what is the AgBiz seminar about?
PCVs working with small-scale farmers come together for a week long seminar focused on helping them organize, plan and market their harvests. The content is a combination of material from two sectors – Sustainable Agriculture Systems (SAS) and Community Economic Development (CED) – which completes the process from planning, planting and processing and selling what they produce. For example, the seminar kicked off with a section focusing on Vision, Mission and Goals. Here, we touched on the importance of knowing where you want to go (vision), what you want to do (mission) and how to get there (goals).
The second day was focused on marketing. These farmers almost always have an intuitive understanding of farming practices but often lack to business savvy to sell them. So themes included supply chain management, quality control, attention to clients and production costs, finishing with a market analysis.
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| One of my favorite activities is using a calculator. Each participant gets one and we practice basic equations and using some of its more common functions. While many have used one, its always a good idea to make sure we are all on the same page, especially pointing out differences between decimal points, commas, percentages and division. Other activities are a little more complex and using the calculator as a tool to manage numbers is helpful. |
Now, because all of the participants are famers, half of the seminar pertained to SAS related content such as farm planning, work calendars, crop inventories and thinking about how to plan for future production. One day, we split up into groups and went out into the farms to examine how these ideas can be put into practice. Much of the material covered is often new and thus exposing participants to different ideas. So, time is spent practicing using these tools in a relevant setting, such as a local farm which has implemented these principles.
PCVs from both sectors have contributed to the creation of the AgBiz manual and also the presentation and facilitation of the seminars. This is an example of volunteer-led initiatives where we combine our training, knowledge and experiences to expand the effectiveness of our service.
Separating the themes into different sessions with activities, demonstrations, games and even some skits helps keep the attention and enthusiasm of everyone involved as well as present the information through various methods. This is important because of the low levels of formal schooling, lack of quality education and because most are more comfortable with more non-formal education anyway.
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| Inside the classroom... |
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| ...and at the farm |
Written over five years ago by PCVs who have long since completed their service and returned home, the AgBiz seminar continues to evolve, meeting the needs of the various audiences that Panama provides. The content has continued to grow and improve, based off of evaluations after seminars and new ideas from the coordinators and participants who are involved, year after year.
Peace Corps Panama volunteers are lucky in the sense that we live in such a small country that has a relatively well connected and public transportation system that allows us and our counterparts to collaborate, network and support each other. The support between PCVs extends far beyond just sharing information. Seminars like this rely on the communication, support and friendship of PCVs in different provinces, sectors and groups and the results can lead to a more productive service.
As a Regional Leader, it was a lot of fun for me to help out with the facilitation and coordination of this seminar. My current role is more focused on coordinating on a provincial level as opposed to living and working in a small community, which is more on an individual or group level of interaction. Spending a week outside of the city and back in the same province that I used to live and work was a great change. It was also nice to be working one on one with farmers again. Seeing the participants change over the week is very rewarding. By the end, everyone is a lot more comfortable and confident.
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| The facilitators! |
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