The Sustainable Agriculture in the Caribbean (SAC) Project is working to strengthen the resilience of Jamaica’s yam-producing sector.
The Sweet Yam Pilot Project, which forms part of the SAC’s work, focuses on improving Jamaica’s capacity to produce dependable planting material.
Deputy Project Director for the SAC, Munish Persaud explained that the project aims to impact as many farmers as possible.
“We're starting to do some innovative work on yam production. At the end of the day, we would want producers of yams in Jamaica to be involved, to get on board on the basis of their passion, perspective and how they think yam production should move forward,” he said.
Persaud, who is also the Advisor on Agriculture and Capacity Building with the World University Service of Canada (WUSC) Caribbean, said the five-year project, which is expected to end in March of 2026, is valued at Can$20 million and benefits five countries – Jamaica, Suriname, Guyana, St Lucia and Dominica.
“It seems like we will be extending for about six months just to make sure that we can look at the resilience of the market system, because it's one thing to do some interesting initiatives that are successful, but we want to make sure that that doesn't disappear when the project comes to an end,” he added.
With the region being particularly susceptible to the effects of climate change and damage caused by natural hazards, such as hurricanes, ensuring that the sector remains resilient is a major priority.
Persaud said one of the aims of the project is sustaining the progress by ensuring that work continues after the initiative ends.
“When these things happen, often the gains of a project disappear because the damage is so significant. What we want to do is to make sure that these systems are resilient and they can cope.
“So far, one of the big successes is getting the system to actually come into being, getting a coalition of different actors, getting that understanding of what is required to make the system resilient and seeing the commitment towards resilience,” he said.
“If I'm to talk about a single success, it is about how we see cooperation, collaboration and complementarity, as a means to enhancing system coordination and building systems resilience,” Persaud said.
Meanwhile, work being done through the SAC project uses a multi-stakeholder approach to address challenges being faced by farmers.
“Part of the SAC project is all about enhancing the agency of all the producers, whether they are female, youth or male producers. Agency is very, very important, and what we find is that some of the challenges that were there, in some way, give impetus to what we're doing. So, rather than being stumbling blocks, we use these challenges to see how they can usher us towards solution,” Persaud said.
The SAC project by WUSC is supported through funding from Global Affairs Canada.
The Sweet Yam Pilot aims to enhance the production of sweet yam through innovative techniques, ensuring consistent access to disease-free, high-quality planting material using the Integrated Market Systems (IMS) approach.
