FAO and Ministry of Agriculture launch project to strengthen supply of high potential agricultural commodities

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), in collaboration with the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry, Fisheries, Rural Transformation, Industry and Labour launched a project of FAO’s Technical Cooperation Programme in St Vincent and the Grenadines (SVG) on March 7, 2025.

The project on ‘Building effective Public-Private Partnerships for Production and Marketing of Sustainable Agricultural Products’ seeks to strengthen the production and marketing of sustainable agricultural products by fostering public private partnerships, ensuring food security, economic growth, and increased competitiveness in regional and international markets, a release from the FAO states.

Preceding the launch representatives from FAO and the Ministry led a rapid assessment into the viability of local agricultural commodities that have the potential to improve local supply to meet growing domestic and regional demand, and reduce the reliance of similar imported products. The team also examined increasing the production potential and export capacity of a list of priority commodities to meet foreign market demand, and completed a market screening assessment for 14 high potential commodities. Technicians from the Ministry were also reoriented with using FAO’s market-led approach for value chain development, the release also states.

As part of the launch, an inception workshop was held where farmers shared valuable insights on some of their challenges in production, such as climate-related risks, input costs, and access to markets. The feedback received from farmers will play a critical role in shaping targeted interventions under the project to enhance productivity, improve market access, and strengthen the resilience of local food supply chains.

Chief Agricultural Officer, Renato Gumbs, stated during the workshop that the country faces a lot of challenges such as marketing and climate change, among others, but that there are also a lot of opportunities and there is a need to work together to make things better. He remarked that “public-private partnership was one of the ways to do this” and that he looked forward to partnering with the private sector “and to advancing from where we are today”.

As implementation of the project gets underway, efforts will be directed towards enhancing production by encouraging investments and adopting advanced technologies and climate smart solutions to fortify production volumes. This will be promoted through collaboration between the public and private sectors to link producers to markets and ensure that investments in agricultural enterprises are both accessible and sustainable. There will also be a focus on building capacity in farm business management, costs of production and addressing key binding constraints at the farm-level to assist in informing and strengthening the profitability and eventual access to finance for farmers. It is expected that this will assist in improving efficiency, competitiveness, attracting investment, and monitoring quality improvements where farmers are motivated to adopt new technologies and recommended best practices, guided by production experts, leading to overall sustainability and development.

FAO Trade and Markets Officer for the Caribbean and lead Technical Officer for the project, Juan Cheaz Pelaez, spoke about the risk to the region’s food supply and emphasized the need for proactivity among all value chain actors to take collective action. He noted that the new FAO project aligns well with the Ministry’s plans to expand local food production to meet local demand, the growing tourism sector and potential opportunities for export. He also highlighted that the participatory, market-oriented and climate resilient strategies of the value chain development approach to be used in the project is essential to ensuring that agricultural development is inclusive, sustainable and responsive to the different market needs while preparing farmers to better handle the climate crisis.

FAO states in its release that it will be working with the Ministry of Agriculture in the coming weeks to select the final list of high potential and priority commodities that will undergo a value chain analysis, as well as engage with other national stakeholders to design a short-term work programme towards reaching production targets.

Scheduled to end in 2027, the project aligns with national and regional policy frameworks, such as the 25 by 2025 initiative for reducing the region’s food import bill, now extended to 2030.