Taiwan mission doing wonders at Orange Hill

The Taiwan Technical Mission in co-operation with the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries provides technical assistance to local farmers in various areas of agriculture.

Nestled at Orange Hill Estate on the Windward end of the island, the agriculture mission started its operations in 1982 with work being carried out on an estimated 18 acres of land. {{more}}

Besides assisting the local farmers, and providing support to the Ministry of Agriculture, the mission trains locals and equips them with the necessary skills needed for modern farming. Currently, there are 15 locals on the farm; most of them provided by the Ministry of Agriculture.

On the farm is a plant tissue culture laboratory that supplies the local Banana Association and Dominica, Grenada and Trinidad and Tobago with suckers.

Tissue culture work is also done on cassava, dasheen, and pineapple. The mission also produces vegetables and hot pepper seedlings. A variety of tomatoes, pineapples, asparagus, sweet corn, wax apple, Taiwan green apple, five finger, guava, jujube, mangoes, coconut and orchids are grown on the farm.

There is also an Agro-Processing Laboratory on the farm.

The mission saves St.Vincent and the Grenadines thousands of dollars each year by producing anthuriums. Instead of importing these plants they are now produced by local farmers with aid from the Technical Mission.

The pipaya produced in Central America is one of the new fruits that the Technical Mission has introduced in St.Vincent and the Grenadines.

One of the chief accomplishments of the Technical Mission is the facilitation of agriculture diversification throughout the country.

St.Vincent and the Grenadines, as a result of the Technical Mission, is now self-sufficient in pig production. With joint effort between the Ministry of Agriculture and the Technical Mission, St. Vincent’s pig industry is the strongest in the OECS.