Thursday, the Agronomist Guito Laurore, Minister of Agriculture accompanied by Ken Wang, the Secretary of the Embassy of Taiwan (Republic of China), received the visit of officials from the project to strengthen the rice production capacity in the Artibonite Valley.

This meeting allowed to review the 5-years project [2014-2018], which aims to increase production and use of quality seed rice and contribute to substantially increase the production of rice growers.

Recall that the rice seed requirements exceed 4,000 tons and rice production is close to 120,000 tonnes / year for a consumption that exceeds 600,000 tons / year.

Results to date of project :

• 200 multiplying agents have been trained as well as 10 technical engineers and 45 agricultural machinery operators ;

• Construction of a drying area of 600 m2 with a deposit of 60 m2 ;

• 7,600 linear meters of drains have been cleaned ;

• 640 tonnes of commercial seed were produced with an objective of 2,000 tonnes end of 2018 ;

• Direct beneficiaries of the project 7,000.

The Minister Guito thanked the team of Taiwanese cooperation for their solidarity and stressed the importance for the sector, to provide rice growers with quality seeds and especially to train multiplying agents.

This visit was an opportunity for the Secretary Ken Wang to reiterate the contribution of his country to Haitian agriculture and announce through the project, more than 700,000 dollars for the next year.

HL/ HaitiLibre