PRESS RELEASE – TAIWAN Technical Mission in Saint Lucia cooperated with the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries, Physical Planning, Natural Resources and Co-operatives of Saint Lucia to hold a Cantaloupe Production Workshop in Dennery Wednesday.
More than 30 farmers and extension officers attended the event. Farmers were taught how to improve the Cantaloupe production by skillful pruning, disease and pest controlling and good agricultural practice for commencing their enterprise.
Mr. Mario Cheng, head of Taiwan Technical Mission in Saint Lucia, emphasized the importance of using modern technology to improve farmers’ production skills in facing the challenge of climate change. He noted that Taiwan Technical Mission has been assisting the local farmers to improve the quality of production and their income through various training workshops since 2007.
At the event, Mr.TimShiao, Taiwan expert, explained that cantaloupe is a vine plant that grows best in warm and sunny locations. He taught farmers the know-how to keep the soil warm enough to encourage growth of cantaloupe at the beginning of the season and the skills to prune fruit vines to improve the quality of the productions. He emphasized that by applying pruning vines fragrant skills farmers’ income could increase by 20%.
The Cantaloupe Production Workshop is part of the on-going “Fruit and Vegetable Demonstration and Extension Project Phase Two”. To date, the bilateral cooperation project had implemented 600 field technical advisory services, provided 20,000 seedlings, and trained over 2,000 farmers, steadily fulfilling the goal of improving local farmers’ competitiveness and revenue. The mission will continue to work closely with the Ministry of Agriculture to further enhance the capability of local farmers.