Director of Agriculture Ricky Brumant has said that a two day workshop aimed at promoting opportunities for Caribbean fresh produce, has met its objective.
The Promotion of Regional Opportunities for Produce through Enterprise and Linkages (PROPEL) which organized the workshop is the newest initiative of the Canadian Hunger Foundation (CHF) in the Caribbean.
The initiative aims to increase the volume and value of Caribbean grown fresh produce particularly in fruits, vegetables, root crops and herbs to reach high value markets, and linking them to buyers such as regional grocery chains, cruise lines, airlines, hotels and restaurants.
Brumant was speaking at the closing ceremony at the Fort Young Hotel on Wednesday afternoon and described the two days as “48 hours of hard work” that was “very good.”
“We believe that we have achieved what we set out to achieve in the past two days for this very important workshop,” he stated.
Brumant noted that they have “learnt concepts that would not only apply to this project, but it could be applied to other activities and other areas of our work be it at the farm level or at the management level.”
He said there will be a round table discussion on Thursday to ensure that “we platform the best initiatives for the country and again this will be multi-stakeholders involved to bring to this country with the resourcefulness of the CHF what we intend to bring to Dominica from this PROPEL project.”
Also addressing the closing function, Representative of the PROPELL and CHF, Julius Polius, said he found the two day engagement “very refreshing,” and added that participants were very knowledgeable and interested in what was going on, and commended the level of participation.
Meantime, one participant Miranda Stephenson said they learnt “not necessarily new but reinforcing some of the ways that we develop indicators and objectives so that they could be smarter, more results oriented and achievable.
So in that way,” she explained, “we can apply it to our everyday work situation so we can measure our achievement on a quarterly, monthly or during our work program period. So that I think was quite essential.”
DEXIA representative, Nadia Pacquette Antoine, said that her role was to highlight the key strategies and role of DEXIA and ensure that it is realized, in terms of the implementation of the project. “And also to ensure that all those across the value chain such as our farmers and exporters can benefit from this project and we are not lost as a country and we grab a piece of the pie as much as possible,” she stated, “So the last two days we were able to actually develop some key results which we could achieve through this project.”
Close to 20 participants participated in the workshop. They represented the Dominica Agricultural and Exporters Ltd (DAPEX), Dominica Export Import Agency (DEXIA), Bureau of Standards, the Hucksters Association and the Ministry of Agriculture.
The project is now in Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, St. Lucia, Grenada, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Dominica, Barbados and Guyana, with possible expansion to other countries in the region in years 3 to 5.
Now lets see some action.
Workshop Country
