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CARDI hosts workshop on Sweet Potato Value Chain Enhancement Project
The Caribbean Agricultural Research and Development Institute (CARDI) held a workshop on the Regional Sweet Potato Value Chain Enhancement and Technology Transfer Project on Thursday 19th January 2023 at the Frenches House, Kingstown.
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Island Representative for CARDI in St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Gregory Linton indicated that the objectives of the project are:
· To promote the sustainable production, processing, preparation, commercialization and consumption of safe, affordable, nutritious, high-quality Caribbean food commodities.
· To improve efficiency and competitiveness of targeted value chains and promote greater investments in the Agri-food Sector.
Mr. Linton referenced the 2019 study on the State of Agriculture in the Caribbean conducted by Caribbean Development Bank along with the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. He indicated that the Food Import Bills had more than doubled between the period of 2000 and 2018.
According to Mr. Linton, the study revealed that in “Countries such as Haiti, Dominica, Guyana and Grenada, agriculture contributes between 7 and 17 percent to GDP which doesn’t sound like much, but it has a significantly larger share of employment, so while the GDP itself may not receive a significant contribution in terms of the pure economics; in terms of persons livelihood and employment, agriculture plays a significant role”.
Mr. Linton asserted that the sweet potato crop is “omnipresent” since it is adaptable to different agroecological zones throughout the Caribbean. He further stated that it is a widely consumed crop and is suitable for a wide range of food processing activities, therefore it possesses market potential.
Mr. Linton highlighted the resilience of sweet potato to climate variabilities being low-lying and not easily affected by wind.
He detailed a number of challenges to production and concluded with the three components of the project, namely:
• Sweet potato value chain analysis, market assessment and business cases.
• Market preferred sweet potato variety research.
• Technology transfer and adaptation.
He concluded by explaining that “the selection of these countries is based on the understanding of their respective commodity development tracks evidenced by preliminary studies conducted by CARDI and their partners/stakeholders”.
