Latin America and the Caribbean

TechnoServe’s Angelica Cubas Pérez visits a farmer in Nicaragua. This is the story that unfolded over lunch.

A cacao farmer in Nicaragua reaches the global stage as his chocolate rolls off a conveyor belt in Denmark. But not everything goes as planned. It isn’t long before climate change tests his resilience.

In 2019, Kyle and Katina Connaughton, owners/operators of SingleThread Farms, traveled to Peru through the Chefs for Change initiative – a program that connects the world’s best chefs to smallholder farmers in developing countries.

Beyond Extraction, a partnership to promote sustained, broad-based economic development in communities surrounding Anglo American operations in Brazil, Chile, and Peru, was nominated as a finalist for the P3 Impact Award. Read about what the partnership means for participants.

The last year has been a whirlwind of uncontrollable events for Peruvians. We talked to Sergio López Zapata, project director of the Alianza CAFE project, about how TechnoServe is helping coffee farmers take control of their own futures.

COVID-19 was just the latest challenge for small-scale farmers in central Mexico. With limited technical knowledge and market connections, many have struggled for years to improve their incomes. José García Martínez was one of those farmers when he joined a TechnoServe program a year ago. Today, he is earning enough to provide security and better opportunities for his family—“a life-changing experience.”

In Central America, the number of young people entering the job market outpaces the availability of jobs. But many young people lack the skills they need to find or create economic opportunities, leading them to seek a better future elsewhere. How can thriving small and growing businesses reverse this trend?

In Guatemala, shifting weather patterns and increased natural disasters are creating additional challenges for smallholder produce farmers like Manuel Guarcas Batzibal. TechnoServe is working with these farmers to boost their climate resilience while also addressing challenges related to high production costs, price volatility, and informal market connections.

In an important ecological buffer zone of northeastern Honduras, farmers are learning how to improve their coffee productivity while preserving the natural landscape. A TechnoServe program helped farmers raise productivity by 200% while still ensuring the environmental sustainability of the largest protected land in the country.

With world hunger reaching its highest peak since 2006, solutions addressing each link in the food system are essential. Drawing from TechnoServe's work across value chains with a range of public and private partners, we are highlighting the latest challenges, insights, and promising approaches in the current effort to prevent widespread food insecurity and build greater long-term resilience.