The Henry A Jastro Research Award gave me the means to work with the International Potato Center researching food and nutritional security among women in the Andean Highlands of Peru.
The purpose of my trip was to understand the impact that Hurricane Maria had on urban agriculture. I did this by interviewing women who are involved in the urban agriculture sector in San Juan, Puerto Rico.
During the summer of 2017, I contributed to the ongoing repatriation and preservation of Maya Itzá plant medicine knowledge in Petén, with the goal of supporting the Itzá in their quest for sovereignty, autonomy, and preservation of their culture and way of life.
This summer, I will be working with the Royal University of Agriculture to help introduce quality standards to vegetable farmers in the Battambang province as part of the Safe Vegetable Value Chain Project (SVVC).
The Henry L. Jastro research award partially funded my research this past summer in Zanzibar conducting experiments to build the knowledge base for climate smart agricultural practices for poultry.
The main focus of the project was to support the foundation of a new rural agricultural high school, which is intended to support students in learning Q’eqchi’ Maya agricultural practices and traditions that have been lost after many years of civil war and racial discrimination.
Throughout the summer and fall of 2018, I conducted fieldwork in New England and California looking at current realities of beginning and mid-career, small-scale, sustainable farmers in the US.
Between July - September of the year 2018, I traveled to the Aysén Region (Chile) to gather information to conduct a study about the Ecosystem Services (ES) provided by temperate forests, and their function, and respond to different uses and management practices in different basins of the region.
My project involved designing and implementing a density trial for moringa oleifera to model alternative production methods to moringa farmers in Meru, Kenya.
