CATIE looks into collaboration opportunities in Central America with University of Nebraska

• “Feed the Future” program aims to support coffee-growing families to face the challenges of climate change and contribute to their food security.

Steve Shultz, a researcher from the University of Nebraska at Omaha (UNO), visited the Tropical Agricultural Research and Higher Education Center (CATIE) to advance the possibility of collaboration in the context of the “Feed the Future” program. During his visit, professor Shultz met with CATIE's general director, Luis Pocasangre, and the coordinator of the Agrodiversity and Food Security Unit, Reinhold Muschler.

Shultz inició su carrera profesional como funcionario del CATIE durante la década de 1990, y actualmente funge como profesor de Economía Inmobiliaria y de Uso del Suelo en la Escuela Superior de Administración de Empresas de dicha universidad estadounidense.

The University of Nebraska is home to the Feed the Future Lab for Irrigation and Mechanization Systems, one of more than 20 Feed the Future Innovation Labs in the United States. These labs leverage U.S. university research to advance agricultural science and reduce poverty.

The proposed collaboration with CATIE would focus on actions that foster the resilience of coffee-growing families in Guatemala, Honduras and Costa Rica to face the challenges of climate change and contribute to their food security.

“We welcome Professor Shultz's interest in reactivating the collaboration with CATIE and hope that it will bear much fruit for small producers, our main target group,” commented Reinhold Muschler, who is working with Professor Shultz to shape the collaboration proposal.

Through these kinds of initiatives, CATIE continues to promote the technology and knowledge transfer to contribute to poverty reduction and achieve Inclusive Green Development in the Central American region and the rest of Latin America and the Caribbean.