Quarterly Report: January – March 2018, USAID’s Avansa Agrikultura Project

The project's overall purpose is to accelerate inclusive and sustainable economic growth through increased productivity and profitability of the horticulture value chain, as well as support nutrition-smart agriculture interventions. The project supports the Development Objective of the USAID/Timor-Leste Mission, which is to strengthen institutional and human capacity for development to improve the lives of Timor-Leste's citizens. To achieve this, the project has two Sub-Purposes and two Embedded Themes. Sub-Purpose 1 focuses on improving the ability of Timorese citizens to engage in economic activities, while Sub-Purpose 2 aims to increase the productivity of selected horticultural value chains. Within Sub-Purpose 1, four activities are being implemented: strengthening market linkages, supporting the development of agribusiness and agri-support service providers, regulatory and trade policy improvements, and improving capacities of government to support horticulture development and improve nutrition. For Sub-Purpose 2, two activities are being implemented: conducting tailored trainings to improve productivity and integrating natural resource management and nutrition training with farmer groups. During the reporting period of January through March 2018, significant activities were undertaken. Under Sub-Purpose 1, farmer group formation training was conducted for thirty new farmer groups, and refresher training on group formation was held with thirty existing groups. The project also provided support to four supermarkets to obtain the quantities of products they needed, and developed a plan identifying how much each group would grow. This plan included assigning vegetables to farmers based on their experience and developing growing schedules to respond to the supermarkets' needs. The project has formed 30 new farmer groups consisting of 487 members, and is supporting farmers to respond to the supermarkets' needs by developing growing schedules. The project will meet with each company to review the plans before meeting with farmers in the next quarter.