Keepin' Busy (October - November)

My time down here, despite appearances, has not been all running, shipbreaking, and learning about Honduras, sadly.  I have been working a little bit as well.

When I first got in, I thought I would work on the potato value chain right away but was almost immediately retasked.  USAID (the 500 lb gorilla down here) had just released a request for proposal for a large project they wanted to execute in Honduras.  It was incredibly broad and ambitious, looking at how rural Honduran families in absolute poverty could be moved to just plain poverty.  A daunting task.  They then piled on requirements to consider gender equality, considerations for the environment, and others.  More daunting still.

What a great project though.  My first task was to see what we and other NGOs had proposed and done in the past on these types of projects.  It was really interesting to see what type of work US and foreign agencies have already done down here.  It seems that the rich world does care about the developing world.  I stumbled across projects launched by Taiwan, Germany, Switzerland, and the IADB, to name a few.  Isn't that amazing, Taiwan is working with Honduras.

Next I evaluated the different crops that had the most possibility for improving the lot of rural Hondurans, this covered increased income through both production improvements as well as new employment opportunities (i.e. if I grow an additional 100 quintales (100 lbs.) of potato, I'll make $X more and hire an additional person per hectare) and also improved food security.  Food security is the idea that I can eat decently and with some regularity.  Some crops achieve these goals better than others.  Coffee and cacao, for instance, can make bank for producers but do little for food security.  Basic grains, on the other hand, don't make a lot of money but contribute directly to dietary improvements.

This task was difficult but fortunately some of my colleagues down here are geniuses.  Rynaldo can think his way through any number of crops, telling you exactly how much all the inputs will cost, how much you will produce, and how much profit you will make in the end.  Incredible.  

Beyond that, I looked into how we could make improvements in these selected crops, specifically along the lines of increasing production, properly organizing producers, adding financing, and connecting the production to markets.  There was a lot of detail in here and let's just say it wasn't easy.  How do you increase financing options for a subsistence farmer producing 4 quintales of beans?  Let's again just say it isn't easy.

It was actually amazing to see how achievable some of these improvements are.  Things as simple as spacing seeds properly could double yields for some crops.  Something as simple as using a steel vs. wooden plow halves harvest costs.  Unfortunately, the poor producers are not exactly model adopters of advice and new methods.  That aspect is also shocking.  

Since completing our response, I've moved to the potato value chain.  We say value chain because we are focusing not only on production, but across all of the pieces involved in bringing a potato from a seed to a grocery store or a restaurant.  This method of analysis is a new trend in development that seems to be pretty effective.

Focusing on Honduras makes me appreciate just how well things work in the US.  Infection free seeds show up on time at field that has been prepared for the crop.  Planting and crop management are done according to best practices.  Harvest, transportation, and processing are planned and executed in conjunction.  Cheap, healthy potatoes are free all year long in grocery stores and restaurants.  It is really amazing.  I could go into more detail about how fascinating that all is, but who wants that?

US Harvest (actual)

Honduran Harvest (actual)

Here, those things don't happen.  The main problem is production.  This is what I am focusing on.  Production is abysmal (quantity and quality) so there is little to no processing in country (not profitable due to low volumes) and supermarkets can't purchase the potato at the standards they need.  Farmers don't see much incentive to improve their quality as they get the same price from intermediaries in any case.  These issues and others go around and around.  

And to start with farmers and improve production is not easy either.  You have to contend with low quality seed (for so many reasons), poor crop management, harvesting problems, damages from transportation, and a lack of markets.  If only every participant would stop looking after their own interests and listen to development agencies, I swear (heavy irony here).  I mean, who responds to incentives anyways?  So, the challenge is to propose solutions that address the largest problems taking into account how people behave and why.  Then, to assure that the solutions actually happen is another animal entirely.

I find this fascinating.  I think of it like a consulting project.  You have client teams and sponsors.  You have problems, constraints, timelines, and goals.  But, everything is more difficult.  Clients are poor, they don't have college degrees, high school diplomas or even junior high educations.  Sponsors pay less and can't fire people  for not working with you.  And goals are more important.  Instead of an EPS target of $2.25, you are talking about moving people up to living off of $2.25 per day.  What work could be more challenging than this?