Nonprofit Agency Emphasizes Training : Technical Aid Offered to Third World Business

You don’t necessarily need high technology, money or even material aid to make some startling economic gains in developing countries--as dairy farmers in Kenya, onion growers in Panama and rice growers in Ghana have all found out, an international aid group says.

“In El Salvador, cucumber growers increased their yields tenfold simply by growing a corn crop first and then using the corn stalks as supports to keep the cucumbers off the ground and avoid moisture damage,” said William F. Farren, vice president of the group, Technoserve.

Timing Was Problem

“In Panama,” Farren said, “the problem was timing. The onion growers were all planting and harvesting their crops at the same time. There were either no onions to be had or there was a glut and the farmers then got rock-bottom prices for their onions.

“We taught them to stagger their planting times six weeks apart and bring a steady supply to market. The increase in their income was astonishing.”

Technoserve, a nonprofit development organization based in Norwalk, Conn., was founded by American businessman Edward P. Bullard in 1968 and now operates in nine countries in Africa and Central and South America.

Technoserve trains owners and managers of small to medium-size enterprises in modern business practices. Last year, it says, it provided assistance to 162 community-based enterprises, projects and institutions from which nearly 700,000 people benefited from projects with annual gross revenues totaling more than $16 million.

“We usually work through a cooperative or trade organization,” Farren said. “We need such a degree of organization as proof that the producers are actually doing something to help themselves before we come in. And we provide no money or material help, only ideas and know-how.”

Francisco Lino Osegueda, Technoserve’s program director in El Salvador, where the organization provides assistance to 17 cooperatives, said he had noted a visible change in co-op members aided by Technoserve.

When they first show up at co-op meetings they are barefoot and wear ragged, torn clothing, he said. Within months “one sees a change in their clothing and their demeanor. Within a couple of years it is as if there was a new person participating in the work of the cooperative.”

John C. L. Doku, program director for Ghana, said Technoserve’s projects in that country include rabbit rearing in one village and a rice-growing cooperative in another. The rabbit farms provide protein and the rice cooperative puts into production 1,500 acres of previously unused land, he said.

Technoserve employs 15 people in Ghana in such projects to achieve healthier and more productive lives for local people, Doku said.

Technoserve currently has teams working in Ghana, Kenya, Zaire and Rwanda in Africa, in El Salvador, Nicaragua, Panama and Costa Rica in Central America and in Peru in South America. Most of its 120 employees are natives of the countries in which they work.

The organization raises its yearly budget--about $3.4 million in 1984--from churches, corporate and individual donors, foundations and U.S. government aid programs. About 10% comes from institutions in the host country.

Technoserve is planning a special effort in Africa, where a prolonged drought means that “literally millions of people face starvation,” Farren said.

“These conditions may worsen in the next 18 months,” he said, and “the African harvest campaign is Technoserve’s response to this crisis. We propose to dramatically expand our activities in Africa, increasing our services in the four countries where we presently operate, as well as expanding into at least two others.”

“It is ironic,” Farren said, “that presently there appears to be no real shortage of funds in Africa. There is, however, a shortage of well-managed grass-roots organizations that can use the available resources.”

Bullard said Technoserve’s emphasis on training people rather than providing money or material “helps Third World people reduce their dependence on outside aid. It helps them to improve their living conditions in a permanent, self-sustaining manner that fosters rural enterprise and democratic organizations.”

“Perhaps for this reason,” Bullard added in Technoserve’s yearly report for 1984, “public support for our efforts continues to increase by nearly 30% a year.”

In 1985, Farren said, the organization is budgeting for expenses of $4.7 million and income of $4.9 million.