OECS - EDU/SMED team meets Nevisian agro processors: Sitting, from right, Mrs Ermine Hendrickson, Mr Samuel Powell and Mrs Jacqueline English. Standing, from right, Mrs Joan Roberts, Mr Colin Bully, Mr Daniel Arthurton, Mrs Olvis Dyer, Mr Allan Paul, Mrs Patricia Blake, Mr D. Nelson-Ashley and Mr Anthony John.

Charlestown Nevis (March 18, 2004) -- Director of Agriculture in the Nevis Island Administration, Mr Samuel Powell, has said that plans are at an advanced stage to establish a food processing plant on Nevis to cater for the production needs of the members of the Nevis Agro Processors Co-operative.

He said this on Thursday at a function held at the Ministry of Agriculture’s Headquarters at Prospect where a four-man delegation from the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States, Export Development Unit, Small and Medium Enterprise Development Programme (OECS - EDU/SMED) met members of the Nevis Agro Processors Co-operative.

 

“A funding agency has already been approached and there are plans to hopefully have it in place before the end of the year,” remarked Mr Powell. He said that members of the co-operative, who have been operating individually from their homes, have experienced tremendous growth and added: “Their kitchens are becoming too small and we need to have a bigger facility that they can use to expand their production.”

 

Executive Director of OECS - EDU/SMED, Mr Colin Bully, told the meeting, which had been arranged by the Business Development/Consumer Affairs Officer in the Ministry of Trade and Industry, Mrs Jacqueline English, that his organisation was responsible for looking at development of exports in a general sense and exports for manufacturing and that agro processing - food and beverage - was a major activity in their work and interventions.   

 

“I read about you two weeks ago in a publication by IICA,” Mr Bully told the agro-processors. “What struck me was the presentation of products and some labels that you had. It shows that there was some level of professional work done on them and I noticed also that you had someone from Trinidad (Ms Judith Francis) helping you.”

 

Explaining the sort of assistance they give, Mr Bully noted that the Nevisian group was well ahead with product development, producing excellent products, and as a result his organisation would look into helping in the area of labelling the products and help to upgrade it.

 

Vice President of the Nevis Agro Processors Co-operative (NAPCO), Mrs Olvis Dyer, who had earlier mentioned that a plot of land had been identified for the processing factory, said that it would allow all the members to operate from under one roof, and commented that what they would need was an all inclusive NAPCO label.

 

Mr Bully asked them to design the labels to camera-ready stage, saying that his organisation would look for funds to have them printed. He further added that down the line the OECS - EDU/SMED would look at how it would assist them in the area of security of the product, “the food safety aspect, what they call the certification of the product, and finally we will look at the marketing.”

 

According to the Executive Director, OECS - EDU/SMED has been looking at some equipment that would fall in the category and size of exactly what the Nevisian group would need and said that they have met persons in South Africa, who produce small-scale equipment for micro plants in the rural South Africa.

 

He said that they are looking at bringing in five of the South Africans to visit the Eastern Caribbean where they will be expected to facilitate workshops in four of the countries. “We are talking of equipment that can fit into a 20-foot container, a complete factory that would have all the elements including the automatic bottling and so on,” noted Mr Bully.

 

The OECS - EDU/SMED team, which is based in Dominica, was introduced by its Programme Coordinator, Nevisian Mr Daniel Arthurton, who said that they were in the Federation to facilitate a trade workshop in St. Kitts that ended on Wednesday. Others in the team were the Director of Trade in Dominica Mr Allan Paul and OECS - EDU/SMED’s Business Advisor, Mr Anthony John.