Promoting agribusiness development in the Pacific

A three-day event being staged in Fiji by the Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation (CTA), the Pacific Private Sector Organisation (PIPSO) and the Secretariat of the Pacific Community (SPC) aims to explore opportunities for increasing rural revenues and improving local health by promoting agribusiness linked to the tourism sector. The Agribusiness Forum: Linking the agrifood sector to the tourism-related markets, will run from July 1 to 3 as part of the Pacific Community Agritourism Week, being held in Nadi from June 29 June to July 3.  The first such event to be held in the Pacific, the Forum is part of a CTA strategy to encourage agribusiness for island communities in ACP regions as a source of sustainable development. Many of these face similar challenges, including declining revenues from agriculture, small-scale economies, remote locations that are vulnerable to climate change and a strong reliance on imported food, with negative repercussions on local health and revenues.

The Agribusiness Forum, which is being jointly organised by CTA, PIPSO and SPC, will investigate the scope for sharing knowledge and experiences between small island states in the Caribbean and Indian Ocean and the Pacific regions, as part of the Intra ACP Agricultural Policy Programme, of which CTA is a key partner. A major focus of the Forum will involve finding ways to boost agribusiness by linking local production to the rapidly developing growing tourism industry. The meeting will address how to fill knowledge and data gaps in the agribusiness sector and will identify the support needed to strengthen links between the various actors in the value chain – small-scale farmers, processors, finance institutions and tourism and hospitality sector officials.

See more via CTA blog: http://www.cta.int/en/article/2015-06-30/promoting-agribusiness-development-in-the-pacific.html 

For more information on the Agribusiness Forum, visit:  

• http://brusselsbriefings.net/past-briefings/building-resilience-of-sids-through-trade-agribusiness/linking-agriculture-to-tourism-markets-in-pacific
• http://blogs.cta.int
• Download the programme