Latin America & the Caribbean | Smith Center for International Sustainable Agriculture

UTIA faculty, staff and students have been expanding partnerships in Latin America and the Caribbean. The Smith Center holds the Milam Family Opportunity Endowment which provides funding for research and extension opportunities in Guatemala for faculty to work on world challenges related to food security, clean water, health and nutrition. Students are able to engage in topics around food, agriculture, and natural resources through UTK Food, Agriculture, and Natural Resource Challenges in Guatemala, a Spring break study abroad program and semester long course.

With funding from the US State Department IDEAS Capacity Building Program for US Study Abroad, the Smith Center has initiated linkages with agricultural institutions in Argentina to develop a new interdisciplinary faculty-led study abroad program for UTK students. The course focuses on emerging market economies, sustainable agriculture and global food security. Students in this program learn firsthand how landscape and agricultural technologies related to livestock production are affected by different policies and socio-economic conditions, and the threat posed by insect resistance to GM crops.

Through partnerships in Mexico, Peru, and Costa Rica, UTIA faculty continue to conduct research and teaching activities related to small-scale coffee farmers affiliated with cooperatives. The Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics (AREC) has developed a partnership with Colegio de Postgraduados Campus Córdoba in Mexico. In 2023, this was further strengthened when AREC faculty hosted ColPos students and faculty at UTIA to develop coffee-focused research projects.

Current Projects

The Smith Center launched the first Herbert College of Agriculture faculty-led study abroad program for UT students to Argentina in 2023.

Argentina Overview

UTIA faculty and students continue to develop collaborations with partners in Guatemala.

Guatemala Overview

UTIA and Colegio de Postgraduados (ColPos) Córdoba continue their international exchange program between students and faculty.

Mexico Overview

The Smith Center is partnering with Zamorano University, a private agricultural university in Honduras.

Zamorano Overview

Past Projects

Overview

This four-year initiative gave fourteen undergraduate students the opportunity to engage in international research and extension activities around the Vaca Forest Reserve in Belize.

Project Dates

January 2017–December 2020

Partners

University of Florida
Friends for Conservation and Development
Friends of the Vaca Forest Reserve
Cayo Women for Conservation
Belize Zoo Tropical Education Center
Belize Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries, Forestry, the Environment and Sustainable Development

Funding

USDA National Institute for Food and Agriculture

Impacts

Selected student fellows worked with faculty mentors over two consecutive summers, developing and implementing research and extension projects related to the interrelationship and coexistence of sustainable agriculture and rainforest conservation.
Thirteen of fourteen were either employed or enrolled in graduate school two years after their engagement in the project.

Overview

The Smith Center has partnered with the University of Jérémie (UJ) through the support of UT alumni Bill and Dianne Seeley. UJ is a private university located in the Grand’Anse in southwestern Haiti. It offers bachelor degrees in agriculture, business administration, nursing, and theology.

Project Dates

Ongoing beginning in October 2021

Partners

University of Jérémie

Funding

Bill and Dianne Seeley

Impacts

The Smith Center completed an organizational assessment to identify challenges and opportunities facing UJ.
The Smith Center has also supported UJ to develop and operationalize a strategic plan based on the results of the assessment.
The Smith Center continues to work with UJ leadership to strengthen their fundraising activities, and exploring other areas for collaboration between UJ and UT, including virtual and in-person educational exchanges, that would bring in other members of the UT community.

Overview

The Smith Center offers seed grants to teams from across UTIA for global engagement. The goal is for these seed grants to result in ongoing collaborative partnerships across teaching, research, and extension, which will lead to external funding and further international opportunities for UTIA. Seed grants are capped at $8,000 per team and are competitively evaluated and selected. The call for Global Seed Grant proposals takes place annually during the spring semester. Once awarded, the grants are implemented over an18 month period, typically beginning in May of each year.

The impetus behind the global food security challenge is direct, with the necessity to feed over 9 billion people by 2050, where the demand for nutritional and sustainable food will be approximately 60% greater than today. Developing a food-secure world, where people have access to safe, nutritious, affordable food, developed by sustainable and environmentally conscious agriculture is the principal goal of this challenge. In order to generate sustainable solutions to these challenges, collaborative international and interdisciplinary teams must be developed. This project established an international partnership between the University of Tennessee Institute of Agriculture and Zamorano University in Honduras for the promotion and advancement of academic and research opportunities for sustainable solutions to global food security challenges.

Project Dates

Partners

Zamorano University in Honduras

Funding

Seed Grant

Impacts

Established an international partnership between the University of Tennessee Institute of Agriculture and Zamorano University in Honduras
Promoted academic and research opportunities for global food security challenges
UTIA has trained 12 Zamorano student interns in four different Herbert College departments
Two Zamorano interns have come back to the Herbert College of Agriculture to complete MS degree programs

Overview

This project addressed sustainable certified coffee production through cooperatives. The overall goal of the project was to support the development of sustainable Fair Trade and organic certified coffee production through cooperatives in the state of Veracruz, Mexico. Mexico is a leading producing region of certified coffee in the world and the state of Veracruz produces 27% of total coffee production in Mexico. Recent research finds that cooperative coffee farmers in Veracruz confront market situations that may reduce their level of engagement with cooperatives and threaten the sustainability of the complete supply chain. We established a collaboration with two leading agricultural institutions located in the state of Veracruz to further investigate those factors influencing the grower-cooperative relationship, and producers’ engagement with cooperatives. The team visited the coffee producing region in Mexico in January 2019. We collected primary data through personal interviews and listening sessions. Hearing directly from coffee growers, cooperative administrators, processors or commercialization intermediaries helped the team expand research efforts in the area of coffee cooperatives in Mexico. We also met with ColPos and UACH faculty with partial Extension appointments to compare and contrast, in a mini-symposium format, diverse issues related to extension efforts in the U.S. and Mexico. In addition, the external collaborators (Dr. Arana-Coronado, Dr. Servin-Juarez, and Dr. Rodriguez-Padron) visited UTIA in Fall 2019.

Project Dates

January 2019–Ongoing study abroad program

Partners

Colegio de Posgraduados de Ciencias Agrícolas (ColPos), campus Córdoba, Veracruz
Universidad Autónoma Chapingo (UACH) Huatusco, Veracruz regional center

Funding

Seed Grant

Impacts

This resulted in further funding from the US State Department to develop a UT study abroad course to Mexico, offered for the first time in January 2022
Faculty from Mexico participated in the UTIA seminar presenting “Extension in Mexico: Serving Coffee Producers. History, Current Activities and Challenges, and Future Opportunities”
Discuss preliminary analyses of data collected in Mexico, to refine research questions, and plan for additional data collection efforts