The Caribbean Agri­cul­tur­al Re­search and De­vel­op­ment In­sti­tute (Car­di) re­cent­ly host­ed a meet­ing of the Cari­com Clus­ter of Agri­cul­tur­al In­sti­tutes at its head of­fice in St Au­gus­tine.At­tend­ing were se­nior rep­re­sen­ta­tives of Cari­com, CA­BA, CDB, UWI, FAO, IICA. CAFN and OECS are al­so mem­bers of the Clus­ter. The meet­ing was chaired by Car­di's ex­ec­u­tive di­rec­tor, Dr Ar­ling­ton Ches­ney.

Five no­table de­ci­sions and com­mit­ment arose from the dis­cus­sions:

�2 The en­tire Clus­ter of Agen­cies will meet three times year­ly, in Feb­ru­ary, Ju­ly and Oc­to­ber

�2 A work­ing com­mit­tee of the Clus­ter will meet month­ly

�2 A fo­cus will be placed on top pri­or­i­ty com­modi­ties for all agri­cul­ture agen­cies, name­ly cas­sa­va and small ru­mi­nants

�2 A re­view of the nine Tech­ni­cal Man­age­ment Ad­vi­so­ry Com­mit­tees (TMACs) for the key bind­ing con­straints, con­tained in the Jagdeo Ini­tia­tive.