CASE Partners with Trees That Feed Foundation to Stage Breadfruit Symposium

The Portland-based College of Agriculture, Science and Education (CASE) is collaborating with the Trees That Feed Foundation to stage a breadfruit symposium.

The event will be held on Wednesday (Feb. 8) at the college’s Lecture Theatre, West Campus in Passley Gardens.

It will look at breadfruit production, best farming practices, processing, and the local and export markets.

Paula Lombardo, Peace Corps Jamaica volunteer in the Green Initiative/Environmental Sector, who is one of the coordinators for the event, told JIS News that the symposium “will bring together experts in the entire supply chain from the growing of the breadfruit to finding a market for the product.”

It will include presentations from lecturer in CASE’s Faculty of Agriculture and leading breadfruit tree specialist in Jamaica, Dr. Seymour Webster, who will give advice on best farming practices; and an export consultant from the United States (US), who will provide information on how to get breadfruit products into that country.

There will also be information on agro-processing and how to turn the breadfruit into flour. The symposium will include product displays from five local breadfruit companies.

Ms. Lombardo, who is also assigned to CASE, noted that breadfruit is an ideal source for gluten-free flour, which is in high demand globally, and the symposium will educate persons about how they can tap into that market.

Some organisations that will participate in the breadfruit symposium are the Breadfruit Institute at the National Tropical Botanical Gardens in Hawaii; the Bureau of Standards Jamaica (BSJ); Scientific Research Council (SRC), and Rural Agricultural Development Authority (RADA).

The symposium is free of cost and is scheduled to start at 10:00 a.m. For further information, persons may call 593-5291 or send an email to info@treesthatfeed.org.

Founded in 2008 by a Jamaican Mary McLaughlin, the Trees That Feed Foundation is a not- for-profit international organisation whose mission is planting food-bearing trees to feed people, create jobs, and benefit the environment.