LA LIMA, Honduras — Before becoming a farmer, Rina Stanley owned a small computer business in San Pedro Sula but was looking for something more sat isfying. In 2005, she set out to grow sweet potatoes on her farm in Choloma.

With technical assistance from Fintrac through the USAIDfunded Rural Economic Diversification (RED) project, Stanley started with one hectare of sweet potatoes that yielded 15 metric tons of export quality product. 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 rec ommendations and employed good agricultural prac tices (GAPs) such as soil testing, weed control, fertil ization, irrigation, pest and disease control, and har vest and postharvest handling techniques.

“The USAIDRED project’s advice was very use ful in making things go well. I would have lost the sweet potatoes if I had not handled it properly, con sidering the amount of rain that fell,” Stanley said.

The following year, she expanded her farm to include cassava and plantain.

Stanley planted one hectare of cassava and again carried out Fintrac’s recommended production tech niques. She harvested 29 metric tons, well above an average of 23 metric tons for other farmers in the region.

Josiah Mwatela, a farmer in Coast Province receiving Fintrac technical assistance, started growing ABE chili and quickly saw the crop’s potential. In one year, from 300 plants, Mwatela earned $1,429 from selling chilies to Mace Foods. “Now I am able to buy food, clothing and medical treatments for my family,” Mwatela said.

Stanley continued to build on her success with plantain. In April 2006, she planted the Curare dwarf variety on two hectares. A year later, she harvested 59 metric tons, generating $14,009 in sales. The recom mended techniques applied by Stanley for plantain production included raised bed preparation, drip irri gation, fertigation, desuckering, deleafing, leaf sur gery, deflowering, bagging, fruit age tagging, and weed and sigatoka controls.

Rina Stanley is one of 70 women clients partici pating in Fintrac’s USAIDRED program. She now plans to plant plantains on another 24 hectares.

“Everything that I know, I owe to USAID RED,” Stanley said.

USAIDRED is a threeyear program being implemented by Fintrac and designed to signifi cantly increase rural incomes and employment opportunities throughout Honduras. It is providing support to 735 lead clients and more than 16,000 beneficiaries. Over the the threeyear period end ing July 2008, Fintrac expects to generate an addi tional $30 million in new sales by lead clients alone.