Guava growers from Turrialba and Jiménez strengthen capacities to develop sustainable agriculture

• The canton generates 98% of the production that supplies the national market.

June 26, 2023. Guava producers from the cantons of Turrialba and Jiménez concluded this June 26 a training workshop to promote rural development.

The workshop was organized by the Orton Memorial Library in coordination with IICA (Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture), CATIE (Tropical Agricultural Research and Higher Education Center) and INDER (, its Spanish acronym, Institute for Rural Development).

Librarian Marco Saborío Vargas emphasized that this is a first step by the Library to bring the knowledge generated by CATIE and IICA to rural populations, starting first with producers in the region, but with the interest of exporting it to other communities in the country.

For four weeks, guava growers received technical advice on a wide variety of topics from specialists from the Botanical Garden, CATIE's research units and the Agroinnova project.

Maximiliano Castillo, from the steering committee of INDER's territorial council, said that this capacity building is important in view of the project to move the fruit processing plant from Tuis to Atirro, which will be leased to the Guava Producers Association of the Progreso community.

"Knowing this, we must have a sustainable production, which leads us to the need to better train producers on issues ranging from seedling to harvesting the fruit," he added.

This start-up is a first step towards this objective, which is why the producers of Tuis, Pejibaye, Santa Teresita, Turrialba downtown and Tucurrique were taken into account.

INDER data indicate that 98% of the guava production that supplies the national market is generated in the canton.

Mabel Arcos Acosta, from CATIE's Agroforestry and Sustainable Agriculture Unit, participated in the closing activity and shared with the participants issues related to the analysis of marketing problems

To this end, she applied the problem and solution tree methodology, which made it possible to identify the most complex issues faced by producers in marketing or raw materials.

"Our goal is to teach them how to plan the strategy to address those problems and look for the planning or management of those projects," she emphasized.

Joint challenges

The Director General of CATIE, Muhammad Ibrahim, emphasized the professional support that the institution provides to producers in the face of the new challenges of modern agriculture.

"With the risk generated by changes in increased rainfall or drought, we must understand the impact on the business, so that producers do not struggle alone against these problems. Today's agriculture is very different from what it was before, and we must face these challenges as a community," emphasized CATIE's general director.

For Jeffry Jiménez, coordinator of the Orton Memorial Library, the workshop helped expand relationships with national producers' associations to collaborate with rural development.

The Orton Memorial Library specializes in agriculture, forestry, animal husbandry and related subjects. It was founded in 1943. It is currently administered by the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA) and the Tropical Agricultural Research and Higher Education Center (CATIE).