Dix­ie-Ann Dick­son

The Latin Amer­i­ca and Caribbean Cas­sa­va Con­sor­tium for Cas­sa­va Re­search and De­vel­op­m­ment of Co­lum­bia will vis­it T&T to as­sist in de­vel­op­ing the cas­sa­va in­dus­try. One of the Min­istry of Food Pro­duc­tion's thrusts is to dis­place im­port­ed food like wheat, rice and Irish-pota­to with lo­cal­ly-grown cas­sa­va and sweet pota­to. The min­istry, work­ing with the T&T Agri-Busi­ness As­so­ci­a­tion (TTA­BA) and oth­er stake­hold­ers, wants to in­crease cas­sa­va pro­duc­tion to 2,000 acres over the next four years. Al­lis­ter Glean, TTA­BA's in­sti­tu­tion­al man­ag­er, said the Colom­bian cas­sa­va con­sor­tium would come to T&T be­fore the end of the year, but a fi­nal date is still yet to be de­ter­mined. Co­lum­bia's in­ter­est in T&T's cas­sa­va in­dus­try was ig­nit­ed by TTA­BA's re­cent vis­it to Bo­go­ta, Co­lum­bia, which was the cul­mi­na­tion of the week-long (April 16 to 21) of ac­tiv­i­ties in cel­e­bra­tion of Cas­sa­va Week. Two rep­re­sen­ta­tives from TTA­BA, Glean and Farouk Shah, who got the nod of ap­proval from T&T cas­sa­va com­mit­tee, held meet­ings with Latin Amer­i­can cas­sa­va stake­hold­ers dur­ing a four-day vis­it to learn about their suc­cess with cas­sa­va. The con­sor­tium is a non-for-prof­it en­ti­ty that looks at ad­dress­ing the is­sues af­fect­ing the cas­sa­va in­dus­try through­out the hemi­sphere to ad­vance and de­vel­op best prac­tices.

Co­lum­bia cas­sa­va in­dus­try

Glean said the main pur­pose of the com­mit­tee's vis­it to Colom­bia was to gain tech­ni­cal sup­port and to en­sure that T&T cas­sa­va in­dus­try has a de­vel­op­ment plan that best suits the needs of the in­dus­try. He said since T&T re­ceived new tis­sue cul­ture va­ri­eties of cas­sa­va from Co­lum­bia, they have yet still to ful­ly un­der­stand and ap­pre­ci­ate the char­ac­ter­is­tics and their per­for­mances. "So part of the vis­it was to clar­i­fy some of these is­sues and gain a bet­ter un­der­stand­ing of the va­ri­eties. We want to get the ex­pe­ri­ences from the oth­er play­ers of Latin Amer­i­ca and how they have used the va­ri­eties and the kind of per­for­mance they have got­ten." The pur­pose of the­ses va­ri­eties, he not­ed, is to help us in­crease T&T's cas­sa­va yield. He said the farm­ers are pro­duc­ing 10,000-15,000 pounds per acre, which is in­suf­fi­cient for the sus­tain­abil­i­ty of the in­dus­try. Glean ex­plained that Co­lum­bia's in­put and ex­change of knowl­edge would au­gur well for T&T's cas­sa­va in­dus­try. "We do not have a prop­er as­sess­ment of where the in­dus­try is at, who are the pro­duc­ers, how much they are pro­duc­ing and we have is­sues with pro­cess­ing. There­fore, we are un­able to ef­fec­tive­ly eval­u­ate the state of the in­dus­try." He said T&T would be work­ing with the Colom­bian con­sor­tium to de­vel­op tem­plates, method­olo­gies, pro­grammes and mech­a­nisms to pro­duce and process qual­i­ty yields that would lead to a sus­tain­able in­dus­try.

Use of bio-stim­u­lants

Glean said part of the in­dus­try's plans is to use bio-stim­u­lants and nu­tri­ents to in­crease yields. If the eval­u­a­tion of the bio-stim­u­lant is suc­cess­ful, farm­ers can see yields al­most up to 40,000 pounds per acre. Asked how are they plan­ning to ab­sorb all this pro­duc­tion, Glean said TTA­BA is look­ing at dif­fer­ent and more at­trac­tive mar­kets and are in­volv­ing all play­ers in the cas­sa­va com­mit­tee. Lo­cal­ly, he said, they would be tar­get­ing bar­beque out­lets and bak­eries that re­spond­ed pos­i­tive­ly to TTA­BA's out­reach dur­ing Cas­sa­va Week. Loc

"Our fig­ure show that we con­sume about nine pounds of cas­sa­va per per­son and we want to in­crease that to 30 pounds per week. That way, we, the cit­i­zens, would al­so as­sist in ab­sorb­ing the in­creased pro­duc­tion."

He said TTA­BA's aim is to mix up to 60 per cent of cas­sa­va with flour to bake bread.

"This is a health­i­er ap­proach," he said.

Glean out­lined some ben­e­fits:

• It low­ers your cho­les­terol

• It's high in fi­bre

• And it's good for di­a­betes as a com­plex car­bo­hy­drate

Car­di us­es sci­ence

Mean­while, the Caribbean Agri­cul­tur­al Re­search and De­vel­op­ment In­sti­tute (Car­di), which is al­so part of the cas­sa­va ini­tia­tive, is al­ready work­ing to boost pro­duc­tion. Un­der the project ti­tled: In­creased pro­duc­tion of root and tu­bers in the Caribbean through the in­tro­duc­tion of im­proved mar­ket­ing and pro­duc­tion tech­nolo­gies, Car­di has en­gaged 40 farm­ers from the 200-strong cas­sa­va com­mit­tee mem­ber­ship. The project is led by Do­mini­ca's com­mod­i­ty leader Path­leen Ti­tus, and sup­port­ed by en­to­mol­o­gist and coun­try rep­re­sen­ta­tive Dr Janet Lawrence. These farm­ers have 500 acres of cas­sa­va un­der cul­ti­va­tion in such ar­eas as Ec­clesville and Cuche for­est in Rio Claro. Through its re­search de­vel­op­ment ef­forts, Car­di is demon­strat­ing to farm­ers how they can in­crease their yields us­ing sci­ence. The ac­tiv­i­ties pur­sued in­clude pro­fil­ing of the pro­duc­tion sys­tems, iden­ti­fi­ca­tion of new va­ri­eties (yield and pest tol­er­ance), de­vel­op­ment of ef­fi­cient prop­a­ga­tion sys­tems, and the de­vel­op­ment of ef­fec­tive pest man­age­ment strate­gies. Car­di's aim is "to con­tribute to the im­prove­ment of liveli­hoods along the root and tu­ber crop com­mod­i­ty chain in the Caribbean through ap­pro­pri­ate mar­ket­ing and pro­duc­tion tech­nolo­gies. Car­di and TTA­BA's plan sees an­nu­al cas­sa­va pro­duc­tion go­ing from 5,454 tonnes to 18,182 tonnes.