Participatory action research and social learning approaches often use powerful experiences gained from living examples. I am honored to have facilitated and evaluated many international changes intended to build trust, critical reflection, and innovation for sustainable development. These exchanges have capitalized on the lessons learned from Campesino a Campesino Movement, and extended them into the value chain to include farmers as well as cooperative managers, government agencies, retailers, and others upstream in the value chain. Many exchanges were rooted in the strong relationships developed following the success of Nicaraguan cooperative organizing in the late 1998-2002 and a coffee quality improvement project financed by USAID and facilitated by Thanksgiving Coffee Company. Below are a few examples of these exchanges:

• In 2000, I co-hosted a vision trip that brought small-scale farmers and cooperative leaders from northern Nicaragua to northern California to see their coffee as a final product and learn from the other end of the commodity chain. We visited retailers, importers and roasters. (See Bacon, 2001 for a write up).

• In 2002. We planned and facilitated a domestic exchange in Nicaragua. This exchange united men, women and adolescents involved from cooperatives in San Ramón, Matagalpa to Mira Flor Estelí to learn from a community-based ecotourism project. They returned to San Ramón and with the support of the UCA San Ramón and some funding from Lutheran World Relief they started an agro-ecotourism project.

• In 2003. Dr. Ernesto Méndez and I collaborated to bring three cooperatives of small-scale coffee farmers and an international development agency from El Salvador to Matagalpa to learn from the cupping lab experience. Although we failed to change the top-down approach financed by the international development agency, the farmers build important ties of solidarity among the cooperatives. A year later the Salvadorian farmers united to create a strong cooperative union.

• In 2004. Nicaraguan Coffee Farmers Host Rwandan Coffee Farmers Trip Reflections

• In 2006, we partnered with major universities in Nicaragua to develop the 8th International Shortcourse in Agroecology and Sustainable Rural Development. The National Agrarian University has led follow-up efforts to create a Central America-based international masters degree program in Agroecology.