CIB Pledges to Sustain Results under ACIDEES Project

Coconut farmers will receive ongoing support from the Coconut Industry Board (CIB) following the completion of the European Union-funded Alliances for Coconut Industry Development, Expansion, and Enhanced Support for the Caribbean (ACIDEES) project.

Since implementation in 2015, the project has helped build critical linkages, revised the regional standard of coconut water and facilitated knowledge transfer and improvements in technical cooperation among numerous regional and international partners.

Addressing a recent Think Tank, Plant Pathologist at the CIB, Dr. Wayne Myrie, said the CIB will ensure that best practices are maintained by farmers.

“We have a partnership that we are discussing now between ourselves and the Caribbean Agricultural Research Development Institute (CARDI). That partnership, we hope, will help to further sustain the work and the results that we have gotten from this very important European Union-funded project for the benefit of the coconut stakeholders and coconut farmers,” Dr. Myrie said.

The Plant Pathologist also said the partnership will not only benefit coconut farmers but also agro-processors.

“I said coconut stakeholders because not only do we cater to the primary producers of coconut but we also cater to the persons who process coconuts as well as down the value chain to those who produce various products,” he said.

Dr. Myrie told JIS News that the CIB will also continue its efforts to boost the production of coconuts and its by-products.

“The major focus of the industry now is basically to increase coconut production in Jamaica. If we are going to go into large-scale agro-processing, we must increase the number of coconut trees we have in the country. It is the raw material that would help us to have more products for the various markets, not only for Jamaica but for international markets as well,” he said.