Agriculture introduces new approach at workshop

Value Chain Validation was the focus of a workshop held here last week.

Value chain is defined as a model of how businesses receive raw materials as input, add value to the raw materials through various processes, and sell finished products to customers.

The workshop which began on April 6, at the Fisheries Complex was hosted by the Caribbean Agriculture and Research Development Institute (CARDI) in collaboration with the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries and the Banana Accompanying Measures (BAM).

The workshop is part of finalizing training in Value Chain Validation for farmers, agro-processors, stakeholders and government and public sector personnel.

The workshop dealt with five commodities such as dasheen, banana, cocoa, pork and goat.

"Value Chain analysis is not new but it is indeed a novel approach that we are now engaging in analysing the crop and livestock enterprises that we are dealing with in agriculture," said Technical Officer in the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries, Winston Magloire.

He stated that the currently the ministry is looking at the entire chain whereas in the past the focus was placed on production planning and programming.

"We focused on agriculture and we focused only on production and what you found that towards the end of your project or your program you would have achieved your target. But let's assume that target was to produce so many tons of a product you have the product but then you discover that there is some other problem which does not allow you to get that product to the consumer," he said.

Magloire said that now production will be looked at as well as the entire chain in order to identify all the processes that are involved and wherever there are bottlenecks.
He added: "What we are going to do here is train those of us that is going to be participating in the workshop in conducting the same type of work analysis for other crops for fisheries for livestock."