More Than 650 Persons Trained Under Hot Pepper Value Chain Project

More than 650 stakeholders in the hot pepper producing sector have been trained under the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) Hot Pepper Value Chain Project.

Valued at more than US$1 million and implemented in 2022, the Project aimed to enhance the competitiveness, sustainability, and international market access for Jamaican hot peppers.

This was done in three components, focused on strengthening technical capacity, implementing food safety systems, and supporting seed certification efforts.

Officially, it is called the ‘Improving Phytosanitary, Food Safety and Market Access Opportunities along the Hot Pepper Value Chain in Jamaica’ project but is also known as the Hot Pepper Value Chain Project for short.

The project was executed in the five pepper-producing parishes – St. Ann, St. Mary, St. Catherine, Clarendon and St. Elizabeth.

Speaking at a JIS Think Tank on May 15 at the agency’s Television Department at 5-9 South Odeon Avenue in Kingston, National Project Manager, Vanessa Oates, said the focus of the project is on building the country’s capacity to produce fresh Jamaican Scotch bonnet, which is in high demand on the international market because of its unique and robust flavour profile.

“For the phytosanitary, which is the first component, training was done on how to monitor and treat with pests and diseases to decrease your losses and increase your output. There was training of 247 stakeholders, so the seed producers, nursery operators, farmers, exporters, agro-processors, extension workers and regulators were trained on this,” she said.

“This training also targeted youth, so we partnered with the College of Agriculture, Science and Education (CASE) and executed a training of over 50 students. These would be the new entrants into the agricultural sector, so we thought it necessary to include them,” she added.

Pest management is crucial to crop development. Considering this, training on the quarantine of pests, how to identify and how to respond to a new pest of pepper was done with 68 technical officers.

Ms. Oates also said training in how to develop and maintain areas of low pest prevalence was conducted with 30 stakeholders, primarily the technical officers within the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Mining.

“The Plant Health Coordinating Committee, as well as the Managers of the Agro parks and some farmers, were included and guided on how to maintain this area. A major highlight of the project was a plant-breeding training that was done where we trained 32 officers with how they can increase seed quality and plant-breeding strategies that can be used to increase the availability of clean seeds,” she said.

The project, which will come to its natural end in July of this year, was conceptualised by the Agriculture Ministry and is supported by the FAO.

Meanwhile, Ms. Oates pointed out that training was also conducted in Agri-Food Systems.

“We trained nursery operators and farmer leaders as well as extension workers on how to properly manage their pre- and post-harvest, so that you were reducing the losses and increasing your output. We also trained them in climate resilience and agro meteorology, focusing on the weather and changes in how you adjust and plan for your planting, so that you’re able to increase your output,” she said.

With the promising export potential of Scotch bonnet peppers, the project aimed to increase the export readiness of producers by raising their standard of operations and securing production best practices for sustainable outcomes.

“We know the climate is ever changing. Hot pepper is basically a commodity that thrives under moderate temperatures, and we know the days aren’t getting any cooler, so we must train farmers on strategies that they can use to mitigate… some of these negatives that could affect their production,” Ms. Oates said.

Other key outcomes from the three-year FAO project include the development and use of a Hot Pepper Status Report to guide sector planning, the development of a Hot Pepper Emergency Response Plan and the design and implementation of the Seed Certification and Quality Control System.