Farmer-to-Farmer Program

The USAID-funded John Ogonowski and Doug Bereuter Farmer-to-Farmer Program provides technical assistance to farmers, farm groups, agribusinesses and other agriculture sector institutions in developing and transitional countries to promote sustainable improvements in food security and agricultural processing, production, and marketing. The main goal of the program is to generate sustainable, broad-based economic growth in the agricultural sector through voluntary technical assistance. A secondary goal is to increase the U.S. public’s understanding of international development issues and programs and international understanding of the U.S. and U.S. development programs.The main objectives of the program are to:Increase agricultural sector productivity and profitability;Improve conservation and sustainable use of environmental and natural resources; Expand agricultural sector access to financial services; andStrengthen agricultural sector institutions.Our ApproachThe Farmer-to-Farmer Program leverages the expertise of volunteers from U.S. farms, universities, cooperatives, private agribusinesses and nonprofit farm organizations to respond to the local needs of host-country farmers and organizations. Volunteers, recruited from all 50 states and the District of Columbia, are generally individuals who have domestic careers, farms and agribusinesses, or are retirees who want to participate in development efforts; volunteers do not have to be overseas development professionals to participate in the program. Farmer-to-Farmer is USAID-funded and implemented by Catholic Relief Services, ACDI/VOCA, CNFA, IESC, Land O'Lakes International Development, National Cooperative Business Association CLUSA International, Partners of the Americas, and Winrock International.