On 4-5 March 2020, the Climate Smart Agriculture and Rural Enterprise Programme (SAEP) hosted its first Climate-Smart Agriculture training entitled Agricultural Production within the Climate Change Construct.
The training was coordinated by Gabriel Clarke, the Coordinator for the Climate Smart Agriculture Component of SAEP and is the first of a series of training to be hosted by this component in the area of Climate Change (CC) and Climate-Smart Agriculture (CSA). This first session was facilitated by Steve Maximay.
The 2-day training session was held at the Grenada National Cricket Stadium and facilitated approximately fifty persons across the Ministry of Agriculture, Ministry of Climate Resilience, Energy, Forestry and Fisheries, and the Ministry of Carriacou and Petite Martinique Affairs. The training included key implementing SAEP Staff, Agriculture Extension Assistants, Fisheries Extension Assistants, 4-H unit officers and Forestry officers.
The session covered an in-depth discussion on Climate Change and Climate-Smart Agriculture including its definition, history, and effects in the Caribbean. Discussions were held on Adaptation and Mitigation; the core of CSA, resource conservation, energy use, safety, biodiversity support and greenhouse gas reduction. The discussion also included examples of CSA practices across the Caribbean and discussion on sustainability features of Climate-Smart Agriculture. The training further went on to explore the use of CSA for agribusiness and looped value chain development. The training group was able to learn about C-SAC, a Climate Smart Agriculture compliance tool developed by Maximay, that is used to assess farms and determine their level of compliance to Climate Smart Agricultural practices through a grading scheme across categories like resource conservation, energy use, safety, biodiversity support and greenhouse gas reduction.
This training session proved to be an excellent start to the series of training in response to one of the programme’s key outputs: “Farmers, MOA extensionists and vulnerable people in poor rural communities receive training in Climate Change and Climate Smart Agriculture practices.”
SAEP Communications Unit
