Regional Agro Tourism Forum

TFPC Bridging the gap between Agriculture and Tourism

Grenada

November 15th - 19th

Project Launch 2012 verbal agreement betweenTFPC and 3 major hotels

• Provide five commodities namely: Lettuce, Tomatoes, Cucumber,

Sweet peppers and Watermelons

• Weekly delivery: 2000 heads of lettuce per week, 1000lbs sweet peppers, tomatoes, 1500lbs cucumbers and 1000lbs of water melon

• Venture lasted for six months but ran into some challenges

Project Challenges

• Drought- insufficient amount of water in 2012 hampered production.

• Untimely payments from two of the hotels threatened the livelihood of our farmers.

• Inadequate storage and improper transportation methods created inconsistency in supply and demand and hence in delivery.

• Insufficient training, in particular in post harvesting handing also posed quality related issues.

• A series of praedial larceny also affected produce availability and reliability to the market.

• Minimum delivery to only one of the three hotels continues

Major Customer Galley Bay Resort & Spa

Total Occupancy 98 rooms = 196 persons

Year House Count %

2014 83

2013 67

2012 78.5

Major Client Galley Bay Resort & Spa Five (5) most preferable local commodities • Green cabbage • Tomatoes • Lettuce • Water melon • Cucumbers

Major Client Galley Bay Resort & Spa

Produce Import Price per

pound

Local Price per

pound

Import efficiency Local challenges

Tomatoes $8.00 - $8.50 $3.00 - $3.50 Availability of goods Unavailability of goods

Green

Cabbage

$2.50 $2.50 Fair quality/ prefer

local

Poor quality of goods

Zucchini $7.50 - $8.00 $4.00 reliable Unreliability of goods

Water

Melon

$3.50 - $4.00 $3.00 - $3.50 When in season

constant import

Inconsistency of goods

Cucumber $2.80 - $3.00 - $3.50 On time delivery,

standardized delivery

method

Poor delivery services

Romaine

Lettuce

$17.00 $3.50 - $4.00 Good

branding/labeling

Packaged

Inadequate packaging &

labeling

Imported vs Local Produce

TFPC Major Successes • TFPC has had grown its membership by more than 100% - from 17 members to 42

members.

• TFPC has been granted funding to set up a climate smart farm with components of protected agriculture/ green house agriculture - 30x100ft Green House which will facilitate water harvesting by way of seamless guttering and the construction of a 5 000 gallons water storage tank to be powered by solar energy.

• maintained strong social networks and we’re continuing to achieve our objectives of providing quality fresh produce to our market, in addition, to building capacity and networking among our partners.

Product Branding & Quality

CREATING A NEW OR RENEWED EXPERIENCE

• FARM to the HOTEL day– produce tasting/sampling

• HOTEL to FARM day o the Hotel day – Packaging and Quality testing

Strengthening the linkages • On-farm direct-to-consumer sales of agricultural products (pick-your own produce)

• Educational tourism (Guest tours, farm work experiences).

• Entertainment (Animal milking experience, crop reaping contest).

• Accommodations (birthday parties, picnicking, weddings).

• Outdoor recreation ( horseback riding, hunting, fishing, hiking, bird watching).

• Model farm/agriculture village – farmers form a cooperative to invest and share

the successes of Bed & Breakfast, local shopping, banking, culture & art centre

Strengthening the linkages Through Ministry of Tourism

• Adopt a Farmer (Hotel to adopt organization such as CAFAN)

• Central Marketing Corporation failure (replaced by Buffer fund)

Overcome major challenges Innovate, create

Thank you

Questions??