Mayagüez, Puerto Rico – With mano-Y-ola’s 10th internship cohort underway, mYo celebrates the contributions our internship graduates are having in agriculture. These internships offer young, bilingual students the opportunity to explore the world of agriculture and increase their knowledge and experience. mano-Y-ola (mYo) has hosted 91 interns over nine cohorts and seven years in both Virtual and Travel internships through the Cultivar Learning Network (CLN). Through the Virtual internships, with online modules and on-site farm projects, and Travel internships, which take place in Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) offices across the United States and Puerto Rico, the next generation is poised to take on the agricultural challenges impacting the nation.
In keeping with mYo’s motto of “passing it forward,” we support our past interns who have gone on to establish vibrant careers in agriculture or other fields. Our CLN internships expand the horizons of each intern, be it for biology, engineering, or animal science majors curious to see how agriculture could intersect with their studies. Each intern also receives one-on-one coaching from agricultural professionals, giving insight into future possibilities and recommended paths forward. Of our interns, 18 have gone on to work for the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), fulfilling the partnership agreement mYo and the USDA share to increase the talent pool of bilingual agricultural professionals.
mYo delights in highlighting the success of its interns, for instance, José Seda, who has gone on to own and operate his own farm, Finca Salomé, in Mayagüez, Puerto Rico. Finca Salomé produces Arabica and Robusta coffee for Café Lareño, grows avocado and banana, and raises and sells fattened pigs, strengthening local agriculture for the island of Puerto Rico. Solimar Álvarez credits the mYo internship with helping her obtain one of five coveted scholarships offered by Maga Agricultural LLC for her final year of university. She has since graduated with a degree in Biology and plans to do post-baccalaureate research studying cows and the process of bacteria and reproduction to develop treatments and new medications as she pursues medicine. Her CLN coach, Sara Espinosa, a former CLN intern and a current USDA Soil Specialist in Florida, provided letters of recommendation for Solimar’s various applications. Darilis Martínez has participated in the tree and seedling censuses of the Luquillo Long Term Ecological Research in El Yunque and will soon join the RaMP-UP biological research project at the University of Puerto Rico. Josecarlo Rivera works to expand his coffee program, Esperanza Coffee Program, which hopes to create direct alliances with suppliers in key places such as Colombia, Central America, and the Caribbean, to provide agricultural education on sustainability, processing, and quality coffee production.
mYo celebrates with past intern, Christian Camacho, who credits the experience gained in the mYo internship program for helping him land a food science job with Cloverdale Foods. According to Christian, “I got to apply a lot of what I got to learn from the internship in the interview process, and for that I'm grateful. Not only does the internship program work, it produces tangible results. This program taught [me] a lot, and I got to contribute to my community because of it. If there's anything I can do, anywhere I can make an impact, I'm here for it.”
Agricultural professionals like Christian, José, Solimar, Sara, Darilis, and Josecarlo will change and improve the landscape of agriculture in the United States. For more information about our internships, visit our website at https://www.latinofarmersusa.com/cln-internships, or contact Program Manager, Patricia Morales, at patricia.morales@mano-y-ola.com if you know a young, bilingual agricultural professional who might benefit from our programs.
-written by Jessica Roqueburg