KINGSTON–As the re­gion­al leader in agri­cul­tur­al re­search for de­vel­op­ment, the Caribbean Agri­cul­tur­al Re­search and De­vel­op­ment In­sti­tute (Car­di), at its Ja­maica Unit Open Day on Feb­ru­ary 19, an­nounced the sign­ing of a hall­mark agree­ment with Di­a­geo par­ent com­pa­ny of Red Stripe, to pro­vide tech­ni­cal as­sis­tance to a project to grow 36 acres of cas­sa­va for the sup­ply of tu­bers for pro­cess­ing in­to sug­ars and plant­i­ng ma­te­r­i­al to es­tab­lish 300 acres of cas­sa­va.

Roger Clarke, Min­is­ter of Agri­cul­ture and Fish­eries, in his fea­ture ad­dress at the open day, wel­comed the an­nounce­ment of the agree­ment signed be­tween Car­di and Red Stripe, Di­a­geo. He in­di­cat­ed that this is an im­por­tant ini­tia­tive to move Ja­maica for­ward. He urged Car­di to en­sure this im­por­tant project is a suc­cess.

"We must grow cas­sa­va ef­fi­cient­ly in or­der to re­duce our im­port bill as we strive to feed our­selves and to move Ja­maica for­ward."

The min­is­ter con­clud­ed that "a coun­try that can feed it­self is tru­ly an in­de­pen­dent coun­try."

Dr Ar­ling­ton Ches­ney, Car­di's ex­ec­u­tive di­rec­tor, in­di­cat­ed that "this ini­tia­tive opens a new and ex­cit­ing vista for cas­sa­va as a se­ri­ous, large-scale com­mer­cial crop for the re­gion. It al­so her­alds a new re­la­tion­ship be­tween tar­get­ed and re­sult-dri­ven re­search and large com­mer­cial busi­ness in the re­gion".

This pro­gramme is the first step in a se­ries of ac­tiv­i­ties for the even­tu­al pro­duc­tion of over 2,000 acres of cas­sa­va for use by Red Stripe, Di­a­geo. The cas­sa­va will be utilised to pro­duce cas­sa­va sug­ar which is in­tend­ed to re­place im­port­ed high mal­tose bar­ley syrup present­ly used in the pro­duc­tion of Red Stripe beer.

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