Project Name：Improving Vegetable Cultivation Management and Post-harvest Handling Project

Project status：Projects in Operation

Cooperating Country：Caribbean, St. Vincent and the Grenadines

Project Description：

St. Vincent and the Grenadines National Economic and Social Development Plan 2013 – 2025 shows that improvements in agricultural sector competitiveness are the developmental focus of the nation. The plan laid out an economic strategy for enhancing local agri-production to increase self-sufficiency and meet the target of import substitution of agricultural products.The Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry, Fisheries, Rural Transformation, Industry and Labour of St. Vincent and the Grenadines hopes to continue relying on professional technology from Taiwan in the post-harvest handling and packaging of fruits and vegetables in order to reduce crop loss and improve yield for the benefit of its farmers.

Implementation Start Date：2023-08-25

Implementation End Date：2024-12-31

Project Objectives：

Improve the post-harvest handling technology for cabbage, tomato, sweet pepper, and cucumber and reduce the ratio of loss to 20% (from the current 45%).

Executing Agency：

Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry, Fisheries, Rural Transformation, Industry and Labour/ Taiwan Technical Mission

Current Progress：

To the end of December 2024, the following activities have been completed：

1. Selected four farmer organizations and provided guidance on post-harvest handling operations.

2.Established a fruit and vegetable loss database and completed statistical analysis of crop loss rates in the trial fields.

3.Introduced heat-tolerant varieties of four vegetable crops—tomato, cucumber, cabbage, and sweet pepper—and developed a cultivation       management manual for these varieties.

4.Introduced the Good Agricultural Practices (GAP) system and collaborated with the National Standards Bureau to support local farmers in GAP capacity building.

5.Assisted in establishing a fruit and vegetable loss database for the trial fields.

6.Conducted six sessions of post-harvest vegetable handling training and demonstrated the vacuum pre-cooling technology.

7.Established one Post-Harvest Handling Demonstration Center for vegetables

Project Contact：WENPIN CHEN

Phone：+886-2-28886022

E-mail：wp.chen@icdf.org.tw

Signing Date：2023-08-25

Mission：Taiwan Technical Mission in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines