Conference focuses on building cassava industry

Co-ordinator of the Caribbean Sub-Region, Food & Agriculture
Organisation of the United Nations, Dr. J.R. Deep Ford.

MONDAY marked the official start of a regional conference on cassava in the Caribbean and Latin America, which was held at the 3Ws Pavilion of the Cave Hill Campus in Barbados.

The joint initiative of the University of the West Indies, Ministry of Agriculture, Food, Fisheries and Water Resource Management of Barbados and the Food and Agriculture Organisation has brought together experts from various national, regional and international institutions to expound the myriad of opportunities that can be derived in the region from this single-crop.

Co-ordinator of the Caribbean Sub-Regional of the FAO, Dr. J.R. Deep Ford, told the conference attendees that the three-day conference must be more than a talk shop, but a clear road map of where the industry is headed.

“I am stressing the importance of practical actions and this applies as well to this regional conference of cassava that we are starting today (Monday). It is intended to produce more than talk and papers – it is intended to produce recommendations on improved varieties and technologies linked to particular final products, recommendations on policy level action that are needed to stimulate the investments needed, recommendations on how we get bakeries and feed millers to use more cassava flour to make bread and produce livestock feed.”

He said the conference comes at a very important juncture for the Caribbean  and for FAO.

“The cassava conference is fundamentally about improving livelihoods and food security in the Caribbean through the building of a cassava industry, the campus Centre for Food Security and Entrepreneurship is as its name implies and its location of the UWI campus suggests is a technology, education, policy and entrepreneurship centre promoting food security across the region.”

“Governments have finally recognised that agriculture must be one of the key pillars of economic growth if the region is to survive and recover from this economic crisis. The conference will therefore explore how cassava can contribute to this effort.”

From right to left: Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry
of Dominica, Matthew Walter; Merina Jessamy, Permanent Secretary
Ministry of Agricultural Lands, Fisheries and Environment of
Grenada; Professor Sir Hilary Beckles of the UWI Cave Hill Campus
in Barbados; Alexis Jeffers, Ministry of Agriculture of Nevis;
Darius Gabriel, Permanent Secretary Ministry of Agriculture in
St. Lucia; and Chief Policy Advisor Ministry of Agriculture in
St. Vincent, Noel Bryce, during a signing of a MOU in support
of the Centre for Food Security and Entrepreneurship.

Yesterday’s event also marked the launch of the Centre for Food Security and Entrepreneurship which Dr. Ford said is intertwined with the objectives of the conference.

“Without technology, policy, education, and entrepreneurship, building a regional cassava industry will not be easy. Without the success of the cassava industry and similar agricultural industries there will be no dynamic demand that will sustain the relevance and the support of the centre.”

“We must have practical inputs from the centre to support the cassava industry and we must have products and increasing outputs defining the success of the cassava industry that galvanises and justifies support for the work of the food security centre over the longer run.”

He revealed that an informal cassava working group was set to meet on Thursday to chart the way forward based on the information received from stakeholders during the three day conference. “We anticipate that a more formal regional working group will be put in place to effectively and efficiently promote the process of the development of a Caribbean cassava industry,” he said. (JH)