Vote for the Photo of the Month: November 2025
Our monthly photo series highlights the beauty and emotion in the lives of our clients around the world. This month, we're celebrating harvest season and the farmers who make it possible.
This time of year marks harvest season across many of the regions where TechnoServe works. Coffee cherries ripen on hillsides in Central America, and vegetables fill market stalls. For smallholder farmers, harvest season represents the culmination of months of dedication, skill, and hope. This is the time of year when the training farmers received from TechnoServe transforms sustainable practices into visible results and higher incomes.
This month’s photos capture the spirit of the harvest season. We see the careful hands that pick each crop, the vibrant colors of fresh produce, and the satisfaction that comes from a job well done. Economic opportunity for smallholder farmers begins with the land and the people who tend it. TechnoServe believes in a sustainable world where everyone in low-income communities has the opportunity to prosper. We fight poverty by helping people build regenerative farms, businesses, and markets that increase incomes.
PHOTO 1:
Carlos Cordero is a 23-year-old coffee farmer and TechnoServe farmer trainer in Sabana Grande, Puerto Rico. He began growing coffee with his parents in 2019 with support from TechnoServe. After learning essential techniques to improve his production, he became a TechnoServe farmer trainer and began teaching other farmers in his community how to grow high-quality coffee.
PHOTO 2:
A vegetable trader at Muthurwa wet market in Nairobi, Kenya. (TechnoServe / Oliver Stephen)
In Kenya, produce often passes through many hands before reaching the consumer. First are the farmers, who, despite the many challenges they face, continue to farm the land to grow food. Next are the transporters, who, once the food is harvested, move it to where it is needed. They often face challenges such as the ever-increasing cost of fuel and taxes, among others.
Finally, the food gets to “mama mbogas”. These are women vendors in Kenya who sell fresh fruits and vegetables, and serve as a vital link in the food supply chain between farmers and consumers. They start their work early in the day, sourcing fresh produce, and continue until late in the evening to ensure families can purchase fresh produce.
PHOTO 3:
In 2020, Olívia Ezequiel and her family fled their home in Cabo Delgado, northern Mozambique, due to the insurgency. They moved further south to the district of Dondo in the Beira Corridor to rebuild their lives. But Olívia ran into challenges as a farmer in Dondo. Climate change has made the region prone to droughts, and Olivia’s crops would often wither and die before she could harvest them. Then she heard about TechnoServe’s Mangwana program and decided to join.
Today, Olívia owns a 3-hectare field where she produces tomatoes, watermelons, and other vegetables. She sells most of her produce and uses the surplus to feed her family. Olívia dreams of expanding her business to export watermelons and tomatoes. She also wants to share the techniques she learned with other local farmers.