Since the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic in Latin America has not yet been alleviated, the Honduran government has closed all borders, which has affected farm cultivation, supply of agricultural materials, and transportation and marketing of agricultural products. May is the avocado planting season. In order to provide farmers with high-quality seedlings so Honduran farmers can plant as scheduled, the Taiwan Technical Mission in Honduras has strived to provide resources to help farmers overcome these adversities.

The Taiwan Technical Mission in Honduras first ensured that the nursery staff obtained necessary COVID-19 protective equipment to continue counseling avocado nurseries in Comayagua, Intibucá, and Ocotepeque. These three public government nurseries produce grafted avocado seedlings. We also assisted in negotiations with the Secretary of Agriculture and Livestock of Honduras to provide seedling transportation services and increase subsidies required for farming materials, so farmers can stick to their planting schedule during the rainy season. In addition, with the pandemic fueling the growth of the stay-at-home economy, the Technical Mission team also counseled private nurseries to use social media to increase product exposure and assisted seedling producers to sell high quality grafted seedlings.

The Healthy Avocado Seedling Production Project in Honduras, implemented by the TaiwanICDF in cooperation with the Honduran government in 2015, has been able to produce 35,000 seedlings per year, with the production goals meeting the demand of 140 hectares of avocado cultivation. In order to promote the avocado industry, the Government of Honduras launched the National Avocado Plan in 2018. Its objective is to expand the production area to 1,000 hectares per year and cultivate at least 4,000 hectares of avocados nationwide in four years. The Honduras Expanding Avocado Seedling Production Project was launched in 2019 in response to the needs of Honduras and to build on previous successes. Through this project, the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock’s Directorate of Agricultural Science and Technology (Dirección de Ciencia y Tecnología Agropecuaria de la Secretaría de Agricultura y Ganadería, SAG-DICTA) and Taiwan Technical Mission in Honduras aim to integrate resources of the public and private sectors and co-sponsors (3 public and 11 private nurseries) to increase their capacity to stabilize the production of 250,000 avocado seedlings annually.

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• Update: 2020/07/13
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