agricultural

Nathan King worked with a leading supplier of high quality cacao in the Dominican Republic, Zorzal Cacao, to establish fermentation protocols that will improve  cacao quality and  ultimately  increase its marketability in the lucrative  global chocolate  market.  Nathan has an extensive knowledge of Reserva Zorzal as he has worked as both a bird researcher and technical consultant for them in the past. On this assignment, Nathan set out to produce higher quality beans by improving the fermentation process and consistency so that there are less undesirable beans in the sorting stage. He also c ollaborated with the Zorzal team to design and build an electronic monitoring and logging system to closely manage the fermentation and drying processes. During this process, Nathan used cacao elements that are typically waste products to study how it affects the taste. Esters, components used for flavor, are increased at higher temperatures and add quality to the fin...

Highlights from IFPRI's 2017 Food Policy Report: Part 1 Original link to the report is here:  http://www.ifpri.org/publication/food-security-and-nutrition-growing-cities-new-challenges How hungry is the world today? Are more people suffering from hunger today than 50 years ago? What can be done about the hunger that remains so visible in our world today? Where is work being done, and who can we look to for the best practices in solving this grand problem? These are questions that the International Food Policy Research Institute ’s (IFPRI) recently published Global Food Policy Report 2017 seeks to answer. Its meticulous efforts of gathering data now point to a positive trend! Global Hunger affects now 11 percent, down from 19 percent in 1990. While this is certainly progress, this 770+ million-strong collection of individuals still presents a major challenge to the international humanitarian landscape. We spent some time reading through the IFPRI's report and wanted to highligh...

Source:   Western FarmPress Jarabacoa, Dominican Republic - Western flower thrips ( Frankliniella occidentalis ) are one of the most detrimental pests for agricultural production in the developing world.  Their impact is particular profound in impoverished communities where integrated pest management (IPM) practices and advance production strategies are neither as prevalent nor comprehensive. In Caribbean nations like the Dominican Republic (DR), these types of thrips have cause devastating crop losses, particularly to vegatable farmers cultivating inside greenhouses. To address the impact that thrips have on crop production and producer wellbeing, Partners of the Americas’ identified Dr. Vonny Barlow, a U.S integrated pest management specialist, to help train Dominican farmers on the importance of sound IPM and greenhouse production methods.  During his two week field assignment, Dr. Barlow provided technical assistance to farmers from the Jarabacoa Greenhouse Cluster. ...