LA LIMA, Honduras — Before becoming a farmer, Rina Stanley owned a small computer business in San Pedro Sula but was looking for a new business opportunity to increase her income. In 2005, she began growing sweet potatoes on her farm in Choloma.

With technical assistance from Fintrac through the USAID-funded Rural Economic Diversification (RED) project, Stanley started with one hectare of sweet potatoes that yielded 15 metric tons (MTs) of export-quality produce. She was one of only a few producers in the area, which was hampered by heavy rain, to make a profit. Stanley followed Fintrac’s variety recommendations and employed good agricultural practices (GAPs) such as soil testing, weed control, fertilization, irrigation, pest and disease control, and harvest and postharvest handling techniques.

“The USAID-RED project’s advice was very useful in making things go well. I would have lost the sweet potatoes if I had not handled it properly, considering the amount of rain that fell,” Stanley said.

The following year, she farmed yuca and plantains. Stanley planted one hectare of yuca and again carried out USAID-RED’s recommended production techniques. She harvested 29 MTs, well above an average of 23 MTs for farmers in the region. Stanley also continued to build on her success with plantains. In April 2006, Stanley planted the Curare-dwarf variety on two hectares. A year later, she harvested 59 MTs, generating gross sales of Lps. 258,110 ($14,009).

Stanley credits her success to the assistance from Fintrac. The recommended techniques applied by Stanley for plantain production included raised bed preparation, drip irrigation, fertigation, desuckering, deleafing, leaf surgery, deflowering, bagging, fruit age tagging, and weed and sigatoka controls.

Stanley is one of the 41 women clients participating in USAID-RED and her plantain farm has been used as a model to showcase USAID assistance through several agricultural field days. She plans to plant plantains on another 24 hectares next year.

“Everything that I know, I owe to USAID-RED. Also, the project helped me to make the market contact to sell my yuca,” Stanley said.

RED is a three-year program designed to significantly increase rural incomes and employment opportunities throughout Honduras. The program focuses on expanding production and sales of high-value and added-value agricultural products. Producers working with the program have substantially increased yields and most importantly, profits.