Over 40 persons participate in ECTAD’s Evaluation Workshop 2011

The Eastern Caribbean Trading Agriculture and Development Organisation (ECTAD) held its final activity under a Letter of Agreement signed between ECTAD and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), under the European Union All ACP Agricultural Commodities Programme (EU AAACP) on Tuesday, September 13, 2011.{{more}}

The one-day Final Lessons Learnt and Evaluation Workshop was held at the St. Vincent and the Grenadines Chamber of Industry and Commerce Conference room (SVGCIC) and brought together over 40 participants including ECTAD farmer leaders, farmers, students of the Bishops College Kingstown and its agriculture stakeholders.

The opening ceremony heard remarks from Arnold Thomas, Executive Director of the SVGCIC; Lesley Grant, representative within the Ministry of Agriculture; Dr. Gregory Robin, CARDI Country Representative; Michael Dalton, IICA Representative; and Jethro Greene, ECTAD Chief Coordinator. Nyasha Durrant, Administrative Officer for ECTAD and Project Coordinator for the Caribbean Farmers Network (CaFAN) gave a brief overview of the EU AAACP programme and an overview of all activities implemented by ECTAD from 2009 to present.

The main activities discussed and evaluated during the meeting included farmers’ training, conducted in seven villages of St. Vincent, namely Troumaca, which covered the North Leeward areas; Vermont, which covered the South and Central Leeward areas; Richland Park; Greggs; San Souci and surrounding areas; South Rivers and surrounding areas; and Georgetown. These training sessions were conducted by ECTAD during the month of August 2011. Discussions were also held on how to strengthen ECTAD farmers’ counterpart programme, which was set up in early 2011. This programme is unique and allows for experienced farmers to work as field officers to help build and strengthen farmers’ capacities within their respective zones, to apply good agricultural practices on their farm and to work together in groups and clusters.

The EU AAACP was launched in September 2007 as an initiative of the European Commission and the ACP Secretariat and will come to a close in November 2011. The overall objective of the Programme was to improve the livelihoods of producers in commodity-dependent ACP countries. More specifically, support was provided to the Roots and Tubers Sector, after this sector was identified at a Caribbean (Kick-off) Consultative workshop, which was held in April 2008 in Jamaica. St. Vincent and the Grenadines was therefore one of four countries which benefited from this Programme which is being coordinated by CaFAN, of which ECTAD is its Secretariat.

The CaFAN Secretariat is currently organizing the final activity for the EU AAACP, which is a Final Lessons Learnt Workshop, scheduled for September 26-28, 2011 at the Blue Horizon Hotel in Barbados and will bring together participants from twelve Caribbean countries, including St. Vincent and the Grenadines.