ITC - International Trade Centre

01/24/2025 | News release | Distributed by Public on 01/24/2025 01:28

Coconuts in the Caribbean: Building resilience through partnerships

24 January 2025
ITC News

Resilience has become a watchword for the Caribbean, whose small businesses have faced off against the COVID-19 pandemic, droughts, supply chain disruptions, rising costs, and a global backdrop of inflation.

Home to many small island developing states, the region is particularly exposed and vulnerable to these pressures.

For over a decade, ITC has teamed up with local and regional agencies and international partners, aiming to help smallholder farmers and MSMEs become better equipped to withstand these crises. In practice, that means building the region's environmental and economic resilience, increasing food security, decreasing dependence on imports, and diversifying risks and opportunities.

Critical for these efforts is the need to factor in each island's ecosystem as a whole. A project known as Alliances for Coconut Industry Development for the Caribbean aims to do just that and is built around a novel idea: that by convening smallholder farmers, MSMEs, institutions and buyers into alliances, not only will the coconut industry grow and thrive, but a bluer, greener Caribbean will emerge as a result. In other words, these alliances are showing that environmental stewardship can and should go hand in hand with sustainable production and trade.

The alliance approach comes from ITC's longstanding Alliances for Action model, which is based on the premise that the best innovations come from the ground up. Participating farmers have set up diversified plots, while adopting climate-smart agricultural practices. They have also planted other crops, like scotch bonnet peppers and plantains, alongside coconuts, in a practice known as intercropping, which is key for soil health, productivity, incomes and resilience.

The project has already helped 5,000 smallholder farmers and other businesses, either through direct support or knowledge-sharing between targeted communities. Participating MSMEs say that these efforts have been critical for sharing their products and the stories behind them with new markets. In the case of Jamaica, the project's partners include the Alligator Head Foundation, Jamaica's Coconut Industry Board, the Jamaican Ministry of Agriculture, the Caribbean Agricultural Research and Development Institute, the Rural Agricultural Development Authority, and key processors and buyers. Funding and support come from the European Union and the Caribbean Forum (CARIFORUM).

One of the project's innovations has been to work from 'ridge to reef' to include coastal communities active in both farming and fishing. Jamaica's Portland parish is home to fishing communities that are famed for their use of artisanal methods, honed over generations. However, environmental threats have put these fisheries, farms and the jobs that depend on them under threat.

The Alligator Head Foundation is a Jamaican non-profit organization that helps manage a marine protected area in East Portland, currently closed to fishing. The foundation helps coastal communities, including fishers and farmers, develop new income sources, from ecotourism to farming to processing coconuts and their by-products.

This partnership brings a green dimension into our blue economy work.
This partnership brings a green dimension into our blue economy work.
Nickie Myers
Director, Alligator Head Foundation

'Our mission is that we work for fish-filled seas, healthy reefs, and thriving communities,' said Nickie Myers, Director of the Alligator Head Foundation. 'This partnership brings a green dimension into our blue economy work, by developing climate-smart agriculture that helps boost our coconut sector and provide crucial tools to our farmers so they can build sustainable livelihoods.'

Together with ITC and the Coconut Industry Board, the foundation has been expanding their climate-smart agriculture programme to protect land and sea, and support farmer and fisher communities resulting in higher incomes, greater resilience to climate impacts, and improved food security. These efforts led the initiative to win the United Nations' Small Island Developing States Partnerships Award in the environmental category in 2023.

Looking ahead, partners will take this alliance approach and apply it to other countries in the region, as part of their efforts to help reduce the Caribbean's food import bill and tackle food insecurity.

Lessons learned will be channelled into an upcoming ITC project on improving regional food security, launched in time for the fourth International Conference on Small Island Developing States in Antigua and Barbuda in 2024.

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