KINGSTOWN, St Vincent: Kevoy Community Development Institute, a Jamaican NGO, which provides farm management and community development training, was listed among invitees to a regional smallholders crop production and marketing study visit in St Vincent and the Grenadines.

The Eastern Caribbean Trade Agriculture & Development Organization (ECTAD), through its newly formed Caribbean Farmers Network (CaFAN), in collaboration with international partners IICA, CARDI and WINFA, with technical support from the Taiwan Technical Mission on Agriculture sponsored the study visit to St Vincent from February 16 -20.

The programme, which was funded by the Technical Centre for Agriculture and Rural Co-operation (CTA), saw representatives from Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, Dominica, Grenada, Guyana, Jamaica, St Kitts and Nevis, St Lucia, Suriname, Trinidad and Tobago, and St Vincent and the Grenadines, as small farmers throughout the region met to discuss the existing challenges, best practices, market determination and developing mechanisation application.

Jamaica was represented by a three man team, which included Thomas Mayne of the Jamaica Agricultural Society, Gifton Griffiths of the Christiana Potato Growers Association and Arthur Green of Kevoy Community Development Institute

The study visit was set against the background for the Caribbean in real and practical ways to find sustainable means to feed itself while, through quality products, improving its market potential to higher levels of export earnings.

The group, which met in the St Vincent capital, Kingstown, is preparing to make representation to the next meeting of CARICOM heads in Belize through a position paper and is expecting to engage in further dialogue at the agriculture ministers’ level as a more comprehensive plan is being developed for and around the sector across the region.