USAID Helps Get Harvests Back on Track
The Coffee Cooperative of Timor (CCT) has been getting this year's coffee and vanilla harvests back on track after civil disturbances interrupted activities in May and June. With support from USAID partner, the National Cooperative Business Association, CCT is working with its farmer members to diversify their agricultural base into other valuable products (such as vanilla and cattle) and revitalize their coffee farms by evaluating species for replacing vital shade trees. CCT has already purchased more than 2,000 kilograms of vanilla beans and almost 10,000 metric tonnes of coffee cherry. The organization expects its export shipments in resume in August. CCT coffee is Timor-Leste's largest single export, and most of it finds its way to consumers in Starbucks' Arabian Mocha Timor blend. Vanilla is an expanding high-value crop for the country's farmers. Last year, more than 90% of the CCT vanilla crop achieved "grade one" classification, attracting some of the world's largest buyers for use in premium extracts and ice creams. (July 25, 2006)

USAID Support Brings Health Services to Remote Villages
A USAID grant to Bairo Pite Clinic allows a medical team to visit eight remote villages outside Dili every week. The grant funds a four-wheel-drive vehicle to take a doctor, a nurse, and two volunteers to areas without access to health services. The clinic coordinates with the Ministry of Health to provide services to places not reached by Ministry facilities. During a recent visit to a small village in the highlands of Liquica District southwest of Dili, the team treated 20 patients. The clinic also uses the vehicles to provide health services to camps for internally displaced persons in and around Dili, and to take seriously ill patients to the national hospital for treatment. (July 25, 2006)

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