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The main objective of the FAO Plan of Action is to promote the development of industries and services in rural areas with the purpose of improving the quality of life. To pursue the above, rural areas must be developed. The objectives of the Caribbean Community Programme for Agricultural Development go along the same lines as those for the development of the rural sector.
The creation of small commercial enterprises for processing and marketing of the agricultural produce of small peasants would help develop the rural sector. To attain the above, it is necessary to train individual farmers and/or their associations in modern artisanal processing to make them aware of the possibilities offered by this technology to augment their income. Artisanal processing permits using simple and inexpensive equipment and material to obtain products of good quality which can be sold on the local market or utilized by the family during the off-season.
The introduction of an artisanal processing technology in rural areas where it does not yet exist, presents the following advantages:
- Reduction of post-harvest losses
- Added value to fresh raw material
- Improvement of the quality of traditionally processed products
- Improvement of the nutritional level of the peasants
- Availability of products during the off-season
- Incrementation of income and improvement of the standard of living of the rural population
- Integration of the rural activity into the market economy
- Generation of employment, particularly of women
The Caribbean Technical Cooperation Network on Agroindustrial Development (CAIDEN) created by the FAO Regional Office for Latin America and the Caribbean in 1984, has been the instrument for the consolidation of the above. The Network was actively involved in the implementation of Project TCP/RLA/4405 "Initial Processing of Agricultural Products at the Family and Community Levels in the Rural Areas", funded by the FAO Technical Cooperation Programme. Through the Project, it was possible to carry out an active exchange of information and technologies implementation of audiovisual material.
The Network also participated in the implementation of Project TCPlBAR/8885 1 "Development of Pilot Cottage Industry", also funded by the FAO Technical Cooperation Programme. Technicians from eight member countries of the Caribbean Community, financed by RLAC, visited Barbados in March 1991 to observe a training course imparted by the Project and to discuss its possible relationship programmes. The participants recommended a sub-regional activity on cottage industry development.
Although each country, despite some obvious similarities, has different training needs and different resources with respect to the type of processing demonstrated, all the participants appreciated the simple but effective equipment used and the quality of the various products. Most of them expressed the need to organize national training courses for farmers, groups and entrepreneurs in the pilot plants already operating in most of the countries, using the equipment, material and technology demonstrated, adapting the training course to the needs of each country. Several participants stressed the importance of locally manufacturing in the sub-region the equipment seen, to be distributed in the rural areas. This would permit the creation of small commercial enterprises in the rural and urban areas at a limited cost.
The activity was limited to the English-speaking countries of the Caribbean Community. The participants represented the following countries: Antigua and Barbuda, Bahamas, Belize, Barbados, Dominica, Grenada, Guyana, Jamaica, St. Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Trinidad and Tobago and Suriname.