Project Name：Plant Tissue Culture Project (Saint Lucia)

Project status：Completed projects

Cooperating Country：Caribbean, St. Lucia

Project Description：

Banana plantations play a major role in the St. Lucian agricultural sector; 120,000-150,000 cultured plantlets are imported into the country annually. To save on foreign expenditure, St. Lucian authorities hope to establish their own plant tissue culture laboratory, which would allow for the development of new crops and help to preserve a stock of important varieties.Overall, this project will:
1.Produce healthy banana, pineapple, root crop, Anthurium and orchid tissue culture plantlets.
2.Produce high-value orchid plantlets, including Phalaenopsis and Dendrobium, and establish commercially viable models for orchid production and marketing.
3.Provide technical training to St. Lucian stakeholders to the point that the tissue culture laboratory can be operated and managed independently.
4.Ensure that the operations of the tissue culture laboratory are sustainable and commercially viable prior to handing the project over to the government of St. Lucia.

Project No：TCD-2011-C06-02

Implementation Start Date：2011-01-01

Implementation End Date：2013-12-31

Source of Funding：Ministry of Foreign Affairs

Project Objectives：

1. Develop the tissue culture laboratory into a regional plantlet supply center with a capacity to produce sufficient volumes to operate on a commercial basis.
2. Produce healthy banana, pineapple, root crop, Anthurium and orchid tissue culture plantlets in place of the 200,000-250,000 plantlets imported annually, and increase production values up to US$720,000.
3. Provide technical training to St. Lucian stakeholders to the point that the tissue culture laboratory can be operated and managed independently.

Executing Agency：

Taiwan Technical Mission in St. Lucia / Propagation Unit , Ministry of Agriculture, Food production, Fisheries and Rural Development (Saint Lucia)

Implementation Arrangement：Members of the Taiwan Technical Mission will provide technical assistance and assistance for capacity building.

Project Performance：1. Completed the installation of the tissue culture laboratory and drafted a three-part technical manual.
2. Cultivated 1,088,165 seedlings through tissue culture production.
3. Organized 14 training courses, conducted promotion work among 56 households, and provided training to 22 technical personnel.