Project Name：Agronomy Development Project (St. Kitts and Nevis)

Project status：Completed projects

Cooperating Country：Caribbean, St. Christopher (St. Kitts) and Nevis

Project Description：

In cooperation with St. Kitts and Nevis’ Ministry of Agriculture and in response to government land policies and the decline of the sugar industry in the country, this project will seek to develop other cash crops.Overall, this project will:
1. Operate trials of sweet potato varieties such as Tainong No.57, No.66, No.69, AVRDC and Taoyuan No. 1, and select and propagate sweet potato seedlings.
2. Organizing farmers’ production and marketing groups and provide them with guidance on field management; propagate and supply pineapple seedling to famers and assist them to control and regulate the ripening process.
3.Preserve a stock of mother trees with which to conduct various seedling production and grafting operations at the demonstration farm.
4.Plan, design and establish a new farm; establish a greenhouse for growing ornamental plants and propagating seedlings.

Project No：TCD-2011-C03-01

Implementation Start Date：2011-01-01

Implementation End Date：2013-12-31

Project Objectives：

1. Import seedlings from Taiwan that are suited to St. Kitts and Nevis’ climate and environment and have market potential; establish a 4-hectare standardized demonstration farm at Newton Ground on which to propagate seedlings (3,000 fruit, 22,000 pineapple and 1,900 papaya seedlings).
2. Select five import substitution crops (watermelon, sweet potato, bell peppers, peanuts and pineapples) and cultivate fine varieties of produce.
3. Establish farmers’ organizations in the largest agricultural production area, Fahies, to assist farmers’ cultivation efforts and to establish production schedules.
4. Organize 6-10 exhibitions and training sessions for the core group of farmers; promote and expand St. Paul and St. Peter as a professional cultivation area and introduce concepts such as smallholder loans, and production and marketing.
5. Establish a consolidation center and organize four production and marketing groups to promote the operation of a production and marking chain.
6. Increase the value of agricultural products for the benefit of farmers by establishing product brands and introducing a marketing system to sell produce to supermarkets.
7. Establish and operate a production and marketing fund to support the transfer of the project.

Executing Agency：

Taiwan Technical Mission in St. Kitts and Nevis /  Ministry of Agriculture (St. Kitts and Nevis)

Project Performance：

1. Propagated 3,585 kgs of peanut seedlings and 772,512 seedlings of sweet potatoes, pineapples, fruit trees and papayas.
2. Produced 1,242 tons of peanuts, sweet potatoes, pineapples, watermelons and bell peppers (248.2 ha), with the total revenue of US$1,166,030.
3. Set up the farmers’organization and the extension mechanism in Fahies, St. Kitts island. 
4. Held trainings and exhibitions in the extension areas, set up the micro-credit for small farmers, and brought in the concept of production-marketing.
5. Set up the distribution center, organize the production-marketing groups, and promoted the unification of production-marketing.
6. Completed the transfer of the production-marketing group’s fund for the project’s sustainability.

Mission：Taiwan Technical Mission in Saint Kitts and Nevis