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Schafer praises Borlaug Institute project efforts in GuatemalaU.S. Secretary of Agriculture Ed Schafer praised the Texas A&M System's Norman Borlaug Institute for International Agriculture for its Food for Progress project efforts in Guatemala during his recent trade mission to Central America. Schafer was in Guatemala in late September as part of the U.S. Agribusiness Trade and Investment Mission to Central America, which included representatives of 17 U.S. companies. The mission's purpose was to promote cooperation, trade and investment between the U.S. and companies and entrepreneurs in Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua and the Dominican Republic, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Foreign Agricultural Service. While in Guatemala, Schafer focused on the work of women farmers from the area, as well as ongoing efforts to benefit Guatemalan agriculture and agribusiness. During a meeting in Guatemala City, he praised the accomplishments of Food for Progress projects funded through the USDA's Foreign Agricultural Service. The projects are led by the Borlaug Institute, part of Texas AgriLife Research, which is an agency of the Texas A&M System. "I'm impressed that these projects are providing Guatemalans with the tools they need to develop business enterprises such as food processing and biodiesel that can be sustained after project funding is finished," Schafer told Dr. Bill Dugas, deputy director for AgriLife Research. Dugas and Johanna Roman, the Borlaug Institute's Latin American programs coordinator, met with Schafer while in Guatemala visiting project beneficiaries and locations. "Since 2005, tens of thousands of other Guatemalan farmers have been able to increase their income and improve their quality of life thanks to this USDA-funded project," Roman said. Schafer was briefed on project activities, including the progress of two new biodiesel processing centers being built in the Escuintla region, and new food processing and canning centers in the Solola region. He also spoke with farmers who were project beneficiaries. Michaela Cux, a Mayan woman representing the 15-member Mujeres Trabajadores (Women Workers) association of Maya de Santa Maria Visitacion, told Schafer through an interpreter how she and other indigenous women were helped by a new project-related food processing facility in their community. "Through the project and the Borlaug Institute, we have learned good practices for food manufacturing and processing," she told him. "We want to succeed, not only for ourselves but because we are an example to other communities." Esperanza Hernandez, another project beneficiary, spoke with Schafer, bringing him tamale salsa and pineapple/carrot jelly produced at the project's Nueva Esperanza (New Hope) food processing center. The facility, which opened earlier this year, was named in honor of her inspiration and work toward establishing the center. At the center, Borlaug Institute personnel and other Texas A&M System staff and students provide instruction and technical assistance on the preparing and processing of foods made from Guatemalan agricultural products. Some of the products produced include pickled vegetables, jellies, salsa and picante sauce. Training and technical assistance activities also helped Hernandez, a widow with three children, improve the corn, bean and coffee production at her own small farm in Solola, as well as helping professionalize her area agricultural cooperative. They also gave her the opportunity to find a new career in food processing and canning. Hernandez now manages the center that has given new hope to her and hundreds of others in her community. "Secretary Schafer also was impressed with our biodiesel program, which is helping the Guatemalans develop alternative fuel in a way that won't compete with food production," said Dugas. Currently, one facility in Escuintla for processing biodiesel from oil-rich, abundantly growing native jatropha is complete and awaiting equipment delivery. Another biodiesel processing facility in the same southern coastal region is under construction. "Mr. Secretary, I hope that today you got a little taste of what we do," Dugas said to Schafer after he had been offered food samples from the Nueva Esperanza center. "I did get a small taste of what you do, and it is very good," Schafer responded. Along with briefing the Agriculture Secretary, Dugas and Roman visited a biofuel processing plant in Masagua and a food processing and canning center in San Lucas Toliman. They also offered remarks at Guatemala's Technical Institute for Training and Productivity, known as INTECAP, confirming that the Borlaug Institute would donate equipment worth $20,000 to the facility. Equipment already installed at the center includes two stoves, a cooling chamber, fryer, food shaping/molding equipment and other food processing items. "We're proud of our accomplishments in Guatemala over the past three years with our first Food for Progress project and are looking forward to what we can continue to accomplish through that program and a second project we are about to start," Roman said. Roman said other accomplishments over the past three years included establishing laboratories for new food product development, building composting units, greenhouses and irrigation systems, and creating new agribusiness opportunities for rural farmers. "Guatemalan farmers have received seeds, fertilizer and supplies for fruits, vegetables and ornamental plants, along with instruction on a number of horticultural and agricultural topics," she added. "We're even showing Guatemalan farmers how to process tropical fruits to produce juices, prepare pastries and make other new products like nutritious trail mixes with dehydrated fruits and edible tropical fruit arrangements that farmers are already selling," Roman said. The second four-year project awarded earlier this year will provide increased access to agricultural markets and improve technology, she said. It also will promote high-value crop development, including bioenergy crops and "non-traditional" fruits, vegetables and flowers. A commercial component will address improving sanitary standards, enhancing agribusiness markets and promoting sustainable business opportunities for farmers. New project operations will be based in Chimaltenango in the central highlands, but efforts will reach across Guatemala, including Izabal, Peten and the southern coastal region. "Those involved in these projects clearly have the passion to provide the assistance, training and technologies that will allow our Guatemalan friends to sustain their efforts," Dugas said. "And the pride we see and gratitude we receive from those who benefit from these projects is heart-warming and humbling." The Borlaug Institute is named for Dr. Norman E. Borlaug, Nobel Peace Prize laureate, Congressional Gold Medal recipient and distinguished professor at Texas A&M since 1984. Building on Borlaug's work, the mission of the Norman Borlaug Institute for International Agriculture at Texas A&M is "to employ agricultural science to feed the world's hungry, and to support equity, economic growth, quality of life and mutual respect among peoples." For more information on this and other institute projects, go to http://borlaug.tamu.edu. 11/3/08 Date: 10/28/08
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