Pacific Businesses Attend the Caribbean and Pacific Agrifood Forum in Barbados

November 3, 2015

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Suva, Fiji – Several Pacific businesses have started making their way to the Caribbean to attend the first ever Caribbean-Pacific AgriFood Forum to be held from the 2-6 November 2015 in Bridgetown, Barbados.

The Forum is being organised by the Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation (CTA), together with the Barbados Agricultural Society (BAS) and the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA), with the support of the Intra-ACP Agricultural Policy Programme.

The Forum is expected to attract more than 250 agribusiness private sector players, decision-makers, policy- makers, financial institutions, chefs, and development partners, who are looking at ways in which to develop business approaches for the agri-food sector in small island states.

Hobart Vaai of the Samoa Chamber of Commerce and Industry will be attending and making a presentation at the Forum said, “I have been working on Business Value Chains, Cluster and Agribusiness projects over the past 4 years and now I get to see some of the world leaders in cluster development, in the Caribbean.”

He added, “I am especially looking forward to building my knowledge on Cluster and Agribusiness best practices, and most importantly bringing this information back to build the capacity and create networking opportunities for my members.”

Another Pacific participant, businessman and managing director of Tanna Coffee, Terry Adlington said, “I am delighted to be participating at this Caribbean/Pacific Agri-Food Forum. It is an important meeting – a culmination of several Forums that have occurred this year covering the areas of Agri-Business, Agri- Tourism, Inclusive Business Modelling and Value-Chain Development, which has brought together a vast array of relevant and key stakeholders from within the Caribbean and Pacific.” He added, “this provides a wonderful platform and a great opportunity for us to link together strongly with each other and learn from our combined experiences.”

Mereia Volavola, PIPSO’s CEO reflected, that attending this event was significant for the Pacific businesses as it was a great opportunity to share and learn from each other and discuss and consider various business development aspects so that our Agrifoods sectors in the Pacific could grow, diversify and consolidate efforts. She acknowledged CTA’s efforts to support the Pacific businesses at this event.

Following the AgriFood Forum, some Pacific businesses have been selected to undertake an industry visit around the Caribbean, visiting Caribbean Agrifood businesses and learning about their development.

PIPSO’s Programme Officer Alisi Tuqa will also be attending the AgriFoods Forum and will be providing regular updates of the Forum and of the Pacific participants and their contributions at the Forum.

For more information, you can contact Alisi on email: alisit@pipso.org.fj