By Admin. Updated 5:55 a.m., Monday, January 8, 2023, Atlantic Standard Time (GMT-4).
White potatoes, often known as English potatoes or Irish potatoes, are used extensively in St. Vincent and the Grenadines (SVG), but there is no agriculture programme for the cultivation of these crops.
Now, in 2024, the country’s government through its Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry, Fisheries, Rural Transformation, Industry, and Labour is making moves to cut down imports of the product by promoting local cultivation.
Agriculture Minister – Hon. Saboto Caesar told One News SVG on Sunday (January 7) that the ministry will be purchasing four hundred fifty-pound bags of white potato seeds to establish cultivation of white potatoes in St. Vincent and the Grenadines.
He said farmers have been identified in certain agro-ecological zones throughout the country and that research has been done over the last six months.
He said the programme should be rolled out by February 2024.
He said the move is part of a quest to reduce this country’s food import bill.
“Now, we have a quest in St. Vincent and the Grenadines to reduce the food import bill and this has been ongoing, and we are part of a CARICOM project 25 by 25, to reduce the food import bill in each member state of CARICOM by 25 percent by 2025,” he said.
“This initiative is part and parcel of that because we have a significant importation of white potatoes, some are imported whole and some are imported in the form of fries – this is what you use to make french fries,” he added.
The agriculture minister said the government wants to move quickly on establishing the cultivation as the hotel sector expands and there will be greater demand for the product.
“What we intend to do is to quickly ramp up the production of white potatoes in the country and then to have the value addition where we would make the fries and the wedges as we have recognized there is an exponential increase in the number of rooms that we will be having on the island over the next six months. We envisage that there will be a significant increase in the demand for white potatoes,” Mr. Caesar told One News SVG.
He said the Ministry of Agriculture will be working with the Caribbean Agricultural Research and Development Institute – CARDI to roll out the programme.
He said: “We will be getting the support of CARDI, the technical support of CARDI, and also technical support within the Ministry to ensure that we will be able to ramp up production quickly”.
He said the cultivating of the crop farmers will be used to encourage farmers to diversify their production.
“What we want to do is to ensure that persons who are farming in the agroecological zones where we can grow these potatoes that persons would use these potatoes to diversify their production,” he told One News SVG.
He said: “Over the last six months, we did significant studies in different zones in the county and we anticipate that in February of this year, we will be able to launch the programme”.
Minister Caesar said that the ministry will be sending a cadre of farmers to Dominica and Jamaica as those countries have expansive acreage of production of white potatoes.
“We will be sending a cadre of farmers to Dominica because both Dominica and Jamaica have expansive acreages of productions of white potatoes. In fact, I visited Jamaica and visited several farms there, and I was able to witness the contribution that the local production of white potatoes has been making to the local economy,” he said.
Mr. Caesar said he would provide more information during his contribution to the debate on the 2024 Appropriations Bill (the Budget).
One News SVG 