Over 60 dasheen farmers registered with DEXIA’s Production Support Programme received technical training in general production, pest management and post-harvest of dasheen on Wednesday April 8th.
The workshop was held at the Laplaine Agricultural Centre with support from the European Development Fund and the Agriculture Policy Programme (APP) Caribbean Action.
The Caribbean Agricultural Research and Development Institute (CARDI) teamed up with major stakeholders including the Ministryof Agriculture, Dominica Export Import Agency (DEXIA) and Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA) to host the one-day training.
Dorian Etienne is CARDI’s local representative.
“We intend to ensure that farmers are knowledgeable on what they should do to produce the quality and quantities of dasheen that are required for the packhouses. There have been concerns about low-production and so the need to build capacity is critical,” he said.
CARDI’s Root Crop Programme Leader, Dr. Gregory Robin was the main facilitator of Wednesday’s workshop.
“This time I [was] here to present on dasheen more from the point of view of how the agro-ecological zones, climate, soil types, rainfall, varieties and time of planting affect productivity; it’s more quasi-scientific to allow farmers to realize how their practices affect productivity,” he explained.