Project Name：Santa Lucia Banana Productivity Improvement Project

Project status：Projects in Operation

Cooperating Country：Caribbean

Project Description：There are 900 banana farmers in St Lucia. 90% of the production area is below 10 acres, and half of the production area is less than 5 acres. It is a fragile small-scale peasant industry. Bananas are mainly exported to the United Kingdom and they are also the Caribbean countries that have imported the most bananas in the European Union. The total import volume in 2016 was 1.16 million tons, showing a declining trend year by year. In recent years, it is often affected by severe weather conditions, leading to the occurrence of banana leaf spot disease epidemic, but also making the original banana production greatly affected. The main contents of the project will include: 1. Development of a banana industrialized cultivation management model 2. Establishment of a banana pest management mechanism. Assist in increasing banana production to create employment opportunities and improve farmers' income.

Implementation Start Date：2018-02-23

Implementation End Date：2021-12-31

Project Objectives：Control banana diseases and pests and improve production management techniques, and increase banana production by 10%.

Executing Agency：1. Taiwan International Cooperation and Development Fund (TaiwanICDF)
2. Ministry of Agriculture, Food Production, Fisheries and Rural Development (Saint Lucia)

Current Progress：The project commenced on 23th February 2018. So far the project team has been scheduling the key activities with the partner unit for the project period while carrying out preliminary works.

Project Contact：Wei-chen Tsai

Phone：+886-2-28732323 Ext.215

E-mail：w.c.tsai@icdf.org.tw

Projected Benefits：Restore and stabilize the long-term production of St. Lucia bananas, build an industrialized production model, and improve integrated diseases and pests management to increase the yield per unit area of bananas.

Cooperating Stakeholders：Ministry of Agriculture, Food Production, Fisheries and Rural Development (Saint Lucia)

Mission：Taiwan Techical Mission in Saint Lucia