Niger
An agriculture Volunteer posted in the Tahoua region helped to establish a demonstration field of short-season millet and a small vegetable garden. He also set up a small tree nursery with some village men and facilitated the planting of these and other trees in and around the village. The same Volunteer has worked with some of his neighbors to implement small income-generating ideas, such as re-selling fruit from a nearby village market, and making a citrus beverage for sale at the market.
Mauritania
A Volunteer organized a workshop about storing onion bulbs for consumption and seed production. Five private agricultural producers and 48 individuals from 11 cooperatives participated. The training included the construction of an onion bulb storage facility that requires no wood--important in a country where wood is scarce and expensive. As a result of the workshop, members of the onion cooperative now produce and properly store their own seeds. Moreover, the cooperative in the community where the workshop was held will be able to rent some of the storage space in the four-room woodless building to other onion cooperatives in the area.
Moldova
A Volunteer worked with a farm organization to promote the production, processing, and marketing of soriz, a new high-starch, high-protein grain that could be a healthy substitute to rice. With the Peace Corps' help, the farm organization built a milling center where the grain is processed and packaged before being sold on the open market. The organization also contacted a small independent food processing company in America to help develop plans for a snack using soriz.
Bolivia
One agribusiness Volunteer's project included developing internal and external markets for fresh raspberries. As a member of the primary agricultural marketing group in Bolivia, the Volunteer's tasks included working with farmers on proper sanitary practices at harvest; modern packaging techniques; timely distribution; and product placement and display by marketers in Bolivia's major cities. He also helped to establish a network of chefs, hotels, and restaurant owners to work on recipe development using fresh raspberries. As a secondary project, the Volunteer designed and built low-cost organic growing systems incorporating mini-greenhouses, composting, and gardens at schools and small-scale farming communities.