NEWS OF NOTE

Food producers in Honduras benefit from IMBA student's marketing skills.

While farmers in Honduras have an intimate familiarity with the process of growing food staples such as yucca, they need help in marketing their products. Low-priced competition from nearby Guatemala has made it more difficult for these growers to compete in their own marketplace.

Laura Jarchow, an IMBA graduate and recent volunteer in the USAID's John Ogonowski Farmer-to-Farmer (FTF) Program in Central America, traveled to Honduras during the summer to help conduct market research on the market for yucca and then pass those skills along. Working with the Centro Universitario Regional del Litoral Atlántico (CURLA), she staged seminars on the basics of market research, including some information for the marketing section of a business plan. She also put on other seminars on PowerPoint usage, communication strategies, and how to train the trainer, helping ensure that the work she did could be passed on.

Accompanying a professor and three students from CURLA, Jarchow gathered information on yucca production within the communities. She discussed the importance of yucca in the community with local leaders, asking whether or not the yucca was for consumption in the community or if they sold it externally, about income alternatives for local farmers, and about other related issues.

In La Lima, she researched the yucca market, identifying major exporters to the United States. Among other discoveries, she found that Honduras does not grow enough yucca to fulfill its own needs, importing the remainder from Costa Rica.

The assignment enabled Jarchow to share her skills and abilities with the CURLA community and helped the developing areas and cooperatives. Furthermore, she was able to develop her strategic planning skills, integrating what she knew with the local, cultural perspective.

Farmer-to-Farmer is part of a U.S. Department of Agriculture effort, a portion of a grant for which was subcontracted to the College by Winrock International. For more information about the program, visit http://www.entrepreneurship.fiu.edu/community_innovation_usaid.htm.