St Lucia hoping to boost efficiency of cassava processing

St Lucia’s agriculture minister has voiced continued support for the country’s cassava industry.

It comes as part of a wider plan to improve food security in the Caribbean region.

“This project came to fruition as a result of a request to the FAO [Food and Agriculture Organization] for assistance in addressing processing issues in relation to the cassava crop, especially because one of the readily-available infrastructures— the Fond Assau Agro Processing Plant—had been in the retrofitting and refurbishing mode for the past six years,” Ezechiel Joseph said.

The assistance of the FAO allowed for facility upgrades to food and safety compliance standards, and the ability to accommodate the cluster groups of the St Lucia Network of Rural Women Producers on a full-time basis.

Deputy permanent secretary in the Ministry of Agriculture, Augustus Cadette, thanked the FAO for the project, named Sustainable Approaches to Agribusiness and Value Chain Development of Roots and Tuber Crops in the Caribbean, valued at US$500,000.

Cadette also expressed the ministry’s gratitude for the donation of a cassava grinding machine with the capacity to grind 1,000 kilograms per hour.

The DPS highlighted the benefits of automation in modern agriculture, and its efficiency in the agro processing of root and tuber crops.

Regional project coordinator for the FAO, Vermaran Extavour, stressed the importance of cassava as a food security crop, as is the present case at the CARICOM level.

“Cassava is the prioritised commodity for this project, and currently results in a 2% reduction on the food import bill within CARICOM,” she said.

“St Lucia, as one of these CARICOM countries, must continue to contribute to the import bill’s further decline.”

She added that at the culmination of the project, St Lucia will be equipped to apply a value chain mindset toward the sustainable functioning of its root and tuber crop industry.