More than a dozen aquaponics farmers in St. Kitts and Nevis are participating in the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) “Advancing Aquaponics through Business Plan Development in the Eastern Caribbean” workshop, which launched on Monday.
Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries, Marine Resources, and Cooperatives Samal Duggins made an appearance at the workshop on Wednesday, 20th October, at the Department of Marine Resources. He used the opportunity to engage with the participants and pledged the government’s commitment to assist with the development of Aquaponics in its quest to enhance food security.
The hybrid training will be conducted in two parts; Part one is the Training of Trainers two-day session focusing on the topics of business planning, capital expenditure/capex, operating expense/opex, revenue, cashflow, profit, marketing, and the aquaponics calculator, while part two is an interactive session with guest speakers from a financial institution, a supermarket and/or restaurant and aquaponics farmers. It will be staggered into five modules over ten (10) weeks.
The ‘Aquaponics Business Plan’ course will guide farmers in developing a business plan for their startups and/or expansion of their small-medium-sized aquaponics farms.
Participating countries under the ‘Harnessing Blue Economy Finance’ are Barbados, Grenada, and St. Vincent and the Grenadines, while countries under the ‘Resilient Aquaculture’ project are Grenada, Dominica, St. Kitts, and Nevis, and Trinidad and Tobago.
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