Honduras: Recovering from Hurricane Mitch

Following the disastrous Hurricane Mitch in Honduras, Fintrac, a small U.S. based consulting firm, launched Centro de Desarrollo de Agronegocios (CDA) in 1998. CDA:

• Was an agribusiness project supported by the Microenterprise Development office at USAID;
• Aimed at providing impetus to agricultural development in Honduras.

This paper highlights a few of CDAs creative solutions that helped revive the horticulture sector, which was severely affected by the Hurricane Mitch.

• CDA directly worked with 1200 producers, who saw their income and employment rise by 33 per cent and 48 per cent, respectively.

Some of the support provided by CDA included:

• Strengthening capacities of smallholders and opening their access to sustainable sources of support;
• Transferring skills such as integrated pest management, drip-irrigation, and greenhouse technologies to producers;
• Promoting engagements between different actors in the supply chain that led to productivity and innovations;
• Helping players change their business models to reduce risk and bring in transparency;
• Linking producers to banks and microfinance services.

Finally, the paper notes that CDAs innovative measures resulted in strengthening of the private sector, by undertaking measures that developed local capacities, and ensured long time project sustainability.