More Financial Assistance for Banana Farmers

Contact: Rose Marie Harris

Tuesday, November 13, 2001 - A further EC$2 million dollar grant will be made available to  farmers, farm workers and their families affected by the restructuring of the banana industry.

The grant is being made available by the European Union under the Special Framework of Assistance Fund Mechanism.  The funds will be used to finance initiatives in the areas of increased banana production and commercialization, agricultural diversification, economic diversification and a social recovery programme.

“The basic objectives of the programme are to increase employment opportunities in the short term for those individuals who have been displaced as a result of the restructuring that’s taking place in the banana industry, address deficiencies within communities as it relates to social and economic infrastructure, and to build the capacity of those targeted to manage their own developmental needs in the future,” said Donovan Williams, Executive Director of the Poverty Reduction Fund (PRF).

The Poverty Reduction Fund is administering this initial subvention under the social recovery component of the programme which is being used in the implementation of a short term rural employment programme over a period of approximately twelve months.

The other components of the programme include civil works designed to address those deficiencies in the social and economic infrastructure, training for the farmers, farm workers and their families in a range of areas, and institutional strengthening and capacity building for community organisations.

Eleven communities, ranging from Fond Assau in the north to Morne Cayenne in the south, have been targeted for these interventions.

“What we attempted to do was to get a good spread of communities that have been impacted on by the restructuring and … we have been able to identify basically all communities in major farming regions of the island,” Williams explained.

Project implementation is expected to commence before the end of November 2001.

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