Official Meetings

Most countries in the Caribbean region are currently facing a challenge with the need to reduce the large amount of food products that must be imported to meet the raising demands of the population and industrial sectors. To meet this challenge, the countries in the region are designing and implementing agricultural development policies aimed at promoting local production of foods that are widely consumed, as well as promoting increased consumption of foods that are produced locally.

In this context, cassava ranks high among the major crops produced and consumed in the region. It is an important source of cheap energy and it also has a good content of vitamins and minerals. The cassava crop is generally produced, processed, consumed and marketed at the level of small rural communities. However, the cassava crop cassava has historically received little attention from donor communities, policy makers and national agricultural research and agricultural technology transfer systems.

This situation with cassava makes even more difficult the task faced by the governments of the countries in the region, that need to formulate and implement policies to improve agricultural productivity, increase production and planted areas, develop new food products, introduce improved technologies for production, processing and marketing and develop new marketing systems.

For these reasons, the Government of Colombia has considered strategic to offer an International Course on Modern Technologies for Cassava Production, Processing and Utilization, to support the sustainable development of the cassava crop in the Caribbean region. The aim is to invite one participant from each of the 12 countries the Caribbean region, in which the cassava occupies a prominent place in the agricultural production system.