GRANT

The Caribbean Farmers' Associa-tion Network (CAFAN) has received 160,000 euros ($13.5 million) from the European Union's Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation (CTA) to fund a series of projects specially tailored to improve the region's agricultural training and marketing skills.

Senator Norman Grant, chairman of CAFAN, explained that the money will be used to create a regional website linking all agricultural societies within CARICOM and create a comprehensive directory of all the major stakeholders and traders in agriculture in the region.

This, he said, would facilitate "persons who want to be involved in agriculture or who want to buy agricultural produce would be able to look on that directory."

More importantly, Senator Grant emphasised that "the big part of it (the project), which is about some 70,000 euros, is to look at training agriculturists and managers within the sector to strengthen the institutional framework for farmers' organisations within their respective territories."

The CAFAN chairman explained further that "the overall idea is that they would be trained in areas like: project management (and) development, risk assessment, financial management, leadership and group dynamics."

The trainees would thereafter be required to transfer the knowledge to farmers' organisations in the respective Caribbean territories.

The training workshop will be held between November 28 and December 6 in Barbados. More than 25 persons from across CARICOM are expected to participate in the workshop, four of whom have been selected from Jamaica.

Senator Grant, who is also the president of the Jamaica Agricultural Society, explained further that a portion of the funds would be used to design brochures to improve the disemination of vital information to the various stakeholders within the agricultural sector in the region.

The CTA is the technical centre of the European Union responsible for promoting agricultural and rural cooperation in African, Caribbean and Pacific countries.