last few weeks in Puerto Rico

As our time here comes closer to the end, we as a group begin to finalize our proposal. Now that all of the field work that we could do in our allotted time is finished, and an analysis of our results has been complete it is time to bring it all together in our final proposal. The teams focus for the next few weeks is to edit, edit, and re-edit our proposal until we believe it is fit to be presented to our sponsor, advisers, and all that were involved with our project. With the amount of work necessary to complete our written the proposal the group splits up the work daily, utilizing Google Doc to determine the work to do as well as what work has been completed.

Preparation

One theme that continues through all of our interviews is the need for organization. An interview or meeting runs much smoother when we show up prepared with an agenda and list of questions we want to ask. This has helped assure that we don't waste the time of the person we are interviewing as well as don't miss any information.

The Importance of Onsite Evaluations

The team discovered how important it is to visit the site in person. We had had a vision of what the project would be and the different types of agroforestry we could use. However, as soon as the team showed up onsite, the entire way the team thought about the project changed. Seeing the forest and how most of the sites would be small, side projects, the team began to rethink the entire social problem the report was targeting. It was after this that the decision was made to redo the central problem of our report, changing the intro, background, and methodology of our report. It shows how important being onsite really was at understanding the entire situation and give the best recommendations possible.

Week 5

The team spent most of the week working on the report and finishing up the objectives. There was only one interview conducted with Magaly Figueroa from the International Institute of Tropical Forestry. The team discussed and finalized the business model and education plan. The SWOT analysis was completed and a final list of plants created. The results, recommendations, and executive summary were all edited and the entire report was compiled.

Week 4

At the start of the week, the team finished editing the background and submitted it. Once this was completed, work on the methodology began, rewriting all parts of it. The team also began developing a seal to use in the branding aspect of the business plan. Research was also done on some labor statistics for different regions of the island. Several more supermarket interviews were conducted, their answers solidifying answers we had already received from previous interviews. The team also surveyed two produce departments of supermarkets, looking at the amount of food produced locally and imported as well as receiving a list of what there was a market for. Lastly, research into the certification of USDA Organic was conducted so that it can be included in the education section of the report.

The following day, the team call Myra from the farmers cooperative the previous weekend. The team discovered that the cooperative was set up on the basis of trying to help Puerto Rico's food self-sufficiency by giving small farmers a place to sell their goods, essentially the central theme of this project. She also gave insight on to the difficulties of starting a cooperative and the challenges faced in the market. After this, the team worked on finishing the methodology and editing the comments on the new background.

On Thursday, the team submitted the new methodology and began writing the results, team self assessment, and executive summary, the first two being due at 11:00 PM. The team also met with Magaly Figueroa, a natural resource specialist at the International Institute of Tropical Forestry, a division of the U.S. Forest Service. She knew multiple contacts that would be of great help to the project including George Felix who has his PhD in agroforestry. The following day, the team had a conference call with Pedro in the morning. Afterwards, we worked on finishing and submitting the executive summary as well as working on the recommendations section.

Week 3

We started this week with adjusting our previous final presentation PowerPoint to reflect the changes as well as preparing a new presentation for the U.S. Forest Service on Wednesday morning. The team also worked on adjusting our introduction, background, abstract, and newsletter to reflect the changes to the project. There was also research conducted on the soils and weather of El Yunque. On Tuesday, the team worked on the agroforestry assessment in the morning and submitted the revised introduction with a cover letter. In the afternoon, the team rode out to the rain forest for easy pickup in the morning. The evening was spent practicing the presentation for the following morning.

Following the meeting at the U.S. Forest Service where there was not enough time for us to present, the team was driven back to San Juan, formulating agendas for three meetings the next day. The team met with Carmen Santiago, a soil scientist at the Natural Resource Conservation Service, a division of the USDA. Pedro was also in attendance, the team meeting personally with him after. The meeting with Carmen was very helpful and in depth about the soil conditions in El Yunque and the different tools available online. We were also able to set up a meeting with her plant specialist, Edwin Mas, where he will teach the team conservation practices. Background edits continued this day as well as the following day, Friday.

On Sunday, the team visited Mercado Organico in Hato Rey, an organic market sponsored by a local farmer cooperative. The team was able to talk to several vendors, the president of the cooperative, a PhD student doing research in the markets of Puerto Rico, and the coordinator for the cooperative who set up a phone conference with us to discuss our project more in depth the following week.

Rewriting the Entire Proposal

When the team arrived onsite, we expected to have to rewrite parts of our paper. It is the natural writing process to write, delete, rewrite, etc. However, after the second week onsite, the team realized that the central problem we had been addressing was the wrong focus for the report. After meetings with our sponsor, Pedro Rios, and the advisors, everybody agreed that the new central problem was food self-sufficiency rather than the previously thought unemployment. While this now meant that the team had to rewrite the majority of the introduction, a third of the background, and the entire methodology. While this was a lot of work and time, it was rewarding to have the opportunity to completely rethink the project, changing it from what we had been told to focus on to what we thought it best suit. After a week and a half of typing and editing, the team had managed to update all of the necessary sections while continuing on with the project.

Staying Over in the Cabin

The cabin has been an interesting experience. In A term, we didn’t quite know what we were expecting when we heard that we would be staying in a cabin. It was more furnished than some of us expected, and less furnished than the others. Either way, we knew we would grow to love it. The first night was going great, we made dinner together and sat down as a group and enjoyed a nice family dinner, and afterwards played cards together. While some people would complain about the lack of internet and more, it really brought us closer together as we were required to socialize with each other. However, none of us expected to not have running water, which was a shock when the plumbing wasn’t working. We were upset because this could have possibly ended our visit short. We went about our next day of work, and when we got back the next afternoon, the water had returned (much to our relief).  

Week 2

      The first week in the rainforest was immensely helpful. The Monday, we prepped ourselves for our visit. We created agendas for our meetings for the week. The Tuesday we drove out to Puerto Rico, and met with Luis and Felipe. The two of them gave the group an immense amount of information that we were able to use. After the meetings, we discussed and decided our project needed to change. We changed the social scope of our project from improving unemployment to making Puerto Rico more food self-sufficient. We also changed three of our four objectives to completely different objectives. While we knew it put a lot of difficult work on us, it was a necessity to make our project the best it could be. The second day we drove with Felipe to see the different sites that were proposed. We saw parts of El Yunque, and also specific farms that we could possibly convince to convert to agroforestry. It was very helpful to see what we were working with, and what kind of a difference we could actually make. Later that afternoon, we met with Pedro and discussed the entirety of our project. The next morning we met with Hilda Bonilla and talked about our project. She assisted us with our possible questionnaires and gave her expertise to us, while also giving us contacts that would be able to assist us even further. The next day we worked on rewriting on introduction and researched parts of the agroforestry assessment. Overall it was a very productive week, but we have a lot of work ahead of us.

Week 1

We hit the ground running the first week here in Puerto Rico. The first day, we visited the US Forest Service in El Yunque. We met our sponsor Pedro Rios, along with our team including Luis, Felipe, Bruce, and Nervalis in an afternoon meeting in the office. As a group, we discussed what our ideas were and how the US Forest Service team would be able to help us. When we returned to San Juan, we spent the next two days working on editing our paper. We also created a timeline for our project, and what we planned to do the next two weeks. Contact was made with Hilda Bonilla of the Agricultural Extension Service and Carmen Santiago of the NRCS. A newsletter was created later in the week and we plan to give it to people who we will be meeting with. Finally, we went to Pueblo and La Hacienda at the end of the week and interviewed managers with our questionnaire we created in A term.