Project Overview
Annual Reports
Commodities
- Agronomic: sugarcane
- Fruits: melons, avocados, bananas, berries (brambles), cherries, figs, citrus, pineapples
- Vegetables: sweet potatoes, beans, cabbages, cucurbits, eggplant, garlic, greens (leafy), onions, peas (culinary), peppers, sweet corn, tomatoes
- Additional Plants: herbs
- Animals: fish
Practices
- Crop Production: agroforestry
- Education and Training: decision support system, demonstration, farmer to farmer, focus group, mentoring, networking
- Farm Business Management: cooperatives, marketing management, market study, value added
- Sustainable Communities: partnerships, urban agriculture, social networks, sustainability measures
Summary:
The money from this grant provided travel funds to take a team of three farmers, a chef (the President of the Micronesian Chefs’ Association), and one Cooperative Extension Field agent to Kona, Hawaii during a week of intense activities that enhanced the farmer-chef team’s networking ability.
The activities included:
1) The subregional Western SARE conference where there were enormous networking opportunities and the chance to observe where Hawaii issues matched those addressed at the recent subregional conference held in Guam;
2) the Annual Hawaii Farmer Chef conference; and
3) the Hawaii Tropical Fruit Growers’ Association Annual Meeting.
The team came back with ideas and methods for interacting and working together that have been successful in Hawaii.
The Guam team held two quarterly meetings. They are continuing to work together in conducting cooperative promotional/educational activities highlighting local produce through their two organizations, the Micronesian Chefs’ Association (MCA) and the Farmers Cooperative Association of Guam (Co-Op). The quarterly meetings were replaced with select Co-Op members attending the MCA meetings quarterly for planning and local produce promotional purposes.
A six-month no-cost extension was received to provide farmer-chef education on local fruit and vegetable seasonality, and to hold a farmer-chef produce quality event and a partner planning meeting for the coming year’s farmer-chef activities. Two of these activities were completed during the period, the seasonality educational event and the planning meeting. The produce quality event was postponed until Fall of 2010.
Project objectives:
1) Take a team of farmers, chefs and Cooperative Extension professionals from Guam to Kona, Hawaii to attend a series of meetings and tours designed to promote peer-to-peer networking.
2) Bring back ideas from this networking for use in program development (grants, collaborative events and educational programs) and actually develop programs using these ideas.
3) Serve as a catalyst to increase communication and cooperation between Guam farmers, chefs and Cooperative Extension and Tourism professionals.