Last Mile Project
Grenada Country Forum
LAST MILE PROJECT
The Last Mile Project purposed to bringing agricultural service providers together, Strategically collaborating with and providing adequate assistance to the country forum having similar goals of providing a platform for stakeholders to work together. These stakeholders include farmers, the private & public sector, non-governmental organizations and community based organizations. The overarching vision of CAEPnet is to provide extension and rural advisory services that effectively contributes to sustainable agricultural and rural development in the Caribbean through vibrant innovation systems. Its mission is to facilitate knowledge sharing and capacity building of agriculture and rural advisory service providers and to foster an enabling policy and investment environment, contributing to sustainable
rural development in the Caribbean.
With a clarion call by regional and international organi-sations for countries to emphasize interventions that would put the Caribbean region in a more food secure position, it is imperative for extension units to be sup-ported in building capacities to fulfil this call.
CAEPNet’s Grenada Chapter is a recently formed organisation through the GFRAS and CAEPNet. The intention is to create a pluralistic approach towards extension advisory services within the islands emphasizing collaborative effort to reach the last mile.
The initial meeting of key stakeholders funded by GFRAS and supported by the Ministry of Agriculture, Grenada was held in August 2018 for discussions on forming a country forum (CAEPNet Grenada) to facili-tate this initiative. International organisations such as the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) are currently facilitating this effort by channeling funds through GFRAS. Grenada CAEPNet received its first phase of funding in 2020 supervised by the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA), is directed towards strengthening the country forum ap-proach. The Committee comprise: Kenly C. Edwards (SAEP), Dr. Tessa Barry (UWI/CAEPNet), Derek Charles (IICA), Lauren St. Louis and Brenda Phillip (MOALF); Karenia McIntosh (BNTF/SAEP) and Tara Francis (GCF) is spearheading many activities.
Emanating from the clarion call by the WHO on the re-alities of the COVID-19 pandemic, it has emphasised the need to re-examine food and nutrition security inter-ventions within the Caribbean region.
The Grenada Country Forum, guided by the CAEPNet and the GFRAS, brought together key agricultural stake-holders to highlight issues at a webinar forum in June 2020. The forum entitled: The Role of Rural Advisory Services in COVID-19 and Emergency Mitigation - A review of current actions and Gaps in Grenada with in-puts from the Caribbean. The forum was supported by the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) under the Last Mile Project. The webinar had three main objectives: (1) To raise awareness of the key issues faced by the extensionists in Grenada and the region in emergency situations; (2) To make concrete recommendations on future actions as extensionists; and (3) To identify the best practices and lessons learnt from the COVID-19 pandemic and suggest ways to deal with the impact for future actions. Seventy nine participants from around the region at-tended featured presentations made by Maximus Lazarus (Grenada), Selwyn Anthony (Guyana), and Dr. Jeanelle Joseph (Trinidad and Tobago).
Cumulatively, they shared their experiences as exten-sionists on the issues faced by their respective national extension services during the COVID-19 lockdown peri-od.
Mr. Lazarus and Mr. Anthony’s are agricultural exten-sion service providers who were able to contextualise the events and their experiences during the COVID-19 lockdown period, their shortcomings, and the strategies used. The presenters highlighted the urgent need for crisis planning for extension services.
Dr. Joseph focused on the findings of the Rapid Assess-ment of the Region’s Extension Capacity in dealing with a Global Health Pandemic. Across 11 CARICOM coun-tries with 66 participants. Findings included barriers preventing extensionist from carrying out duties — lim-ited PPE 8.7%, psychological 5.8%, lack of mobility 18.8%, national restrictions 21.7%, technological 23.2%and limited resources 20.3%. The webinar’s participants contributed to the recommendations that emerged for improving the rural advisory services during emergen-cies in the region.
Following the RAS (Rural Advisory Services) and COVID-19 & emergency mitigation webinar – CAEPNet regional held a webinar on July 29th, 2020, on Improv-ing Extension Services. The Webinar boasted an es-teemed panel of presenters: Dr. Norma Samuel of Flori-da University, Dr. Jeanelle Joseph, and Dr. Wayne Gan-pat of UWI St. Augustine, Kuldip Ragnauth of the Guy-ana Country Forum, Glenville Hall, RADA Jamaica and Dr. Dunstan Campbell, Grenada Country Forum.
The Webinar’s agenda focused on: (1) CAEPNet: Who we are and what we do? (2) The Way Forward Given Covid-19 ; (3) How to become involved in CAEPNet? (4) Guyana Agricultural Extension Providers’ Network (CAEPNet); (5) Jamaica Country Forum; AND (6) Offi-cial Launch of the Grenada Country Forum. Thus far, other activities organised by the forum includes a re-gional virtual training on project proposal writing facilitat-ed by Mr. Fitroy James, consultant. In addition, its effort to create a space for information and knowledge shar-ing, created a Facebook page and is completing the construction of a website that is 90% completed.
Efforts are now being made for engaging more stake-holders and creating national visibility as the organisa-tion continues the first phase of strengthening the or-ganisation. —Grenada CAEPNet
PROJECTS UNDER THE LAST MILE PROJECT
SETTING UP A SMALL BUSINESS ENTERPRISE (SBE) TRAINING
The Small Business Enterprises training course was completed by GSETRI over a three-month period between January to March 2024.
SEAMOSS TRAINING
As part of CAEPNET’s capacity building initiative, the Seamoss Cultivation Training was held virtually in June 2023.The training outlined the fundamentals that seamoss producers as well as members of technical support agencies must be ...
ANIMAL HUSBANDRY TRAINING
Animal Husbandry training held in November 2022 as part of the capacity building initiative in agriculture under Last Mile Project executed by the Grenada Country Forum.