Greetings from San Pedro Sula!
Current home.
I've just arrived in Honduras for the start of a very exciting three months and thought
I'd take this opportunity to give some background on what I'll be doing.
From now through December, I'll be working with the Honduran Ministry of Agriculture on a few broad goals:
1. Reducing the need for foreign imports of potato seed
2. Improving the supply chain for aforementioned seed
2. Improving the supply chain for aforementioned seed
3. Lowering the cost of the domestic production and certification of potato seed
These aims are very challenging but are also very important. Farmers here only started growing potatoes 5 years ago with the assistance of USAID, USDA, and TechnoServe (article) but have had tremendous success since then. Unfortunately, that success has vanished with the appearance of late blight, the same disease that caused the Irish Potato Famine in 1850. Some farmers are losing up to 70% of their crop in the field! This is a huge problem and is made all the more serious by how easily blight can spread.
Potato with late blight.
By gaining control over the quality of the seeds throughout the country, Honduras can begin to fight back the blight. But it won't be easy. While Honduras has access to modern research and fungicides, it is still a relatively poor country, with a GDP per capita of only $4,100. To add some context, this is just slightly worse than Bolivia and Syria and just slightly better than Congo and Iraq. What's worse, this small amount is being spread in one of the most unequal societies in the world with farmers more often than not coming out on the wrong side of the division.
However, I'm optimistic that we'll be able to have a significant impact here. Just from meeting a few of the team here, I have an idea of how they've achieved so much success over the past 5-10 years. Hopefully my project, along with the other 6-8 that are already underway, will fare just as well.
