Venturing Out

We kicked off our day today with USAID Kosovo! Traditionally a lot of producers in Kosovo have produced corn and wheat. Unfortunately, due to small tracks of land (average farm size of 5 acres) these are not very profitable crops. We ventured out to the Kosovo countryside with USAID and Tetra Tech to learn about some projects that were helping farmers become profitable and sustainable. We first visited an apple orchard and greenhouse production facility before traveling to a greenhouse operation that is producing all types of vegetables and over one million seedlings a year to sell to other producers. It was truly remarkable to see what the farmers and producers were doing to make 20-50 times more with these production practices than traditional farmers producing the traditional corn and wheat crops.

The projects that we took a look at focused on:

• Improving agricultural production and food safety
• Developing markets
• Finding strategy partners (for sustainability)

At the conclusion of our time with USAID we returned to Prishtina for a lunch before our educator and student teams started venturing out to their partner schools and communities throughout Kosovo. This is exciting times as students and educators from Kosovo and Iowa are coming together as they learn more about agricultural education and agriculture in general from each other. Educators and students have arrived in their partner school communities and are ready for a couple full days together before all return to Prishtina for a dinner Friday night.