Bridgetown, Barbados November 24th, 2020 – The Resilient Environment & Agricultural Caribbean Habitats (REACH) Project welcomes a new scientific partner. The Council for Agricultural Research and Economics of Italy (CREA) has joined the existing consortium and will be leading innovative research activities covering the nexus among disasters, agricultural crops and pest management.

CREA is a leading research organization dedicated to the agri-food supply chains, supervised by the Ministry of Ministry of Agricultural, Food, Forestry and Tourism Policies. Its scientific activity covers agricultural crops, livestock, fishery, forestry, agro-industry, food science – and socioeconomics. Specifically, within the REACH project CREA will support the partnership by developing a model for forecasting pest and disease insurgence and a model for water management and precision irrigation.

A dedicated meeting session took place on November 18th to present CREA to the existing consortium and to illustrate the following activities to be implemented in the next few weeks. The session featured national project coordinators, national focal points, and Ministries of Agriculture from Saint Lucia and St. Vincent and the Grenadines as well as representatives from the CDEMA, CIMH, CIMA Research Foundation and FAO.

After a challenging period, due to COVID-19 constrains, the following weeks will certainly be rich of novelties and useful findings towards disaster risk management and resilient agricultural strategies, two very important assets to assure a sustainable development in the region and promote the sharing of good practices between Italy and the Caribbean region.

The primary goal of the REACH project is to enhance the capability of small farmers and their communities to organize and manage Agricultural Disaster Risk Management initiatives through improved access to and joint management of relevant agro-meteorological information flows (on a two-way basis) in the beneficiary countries of Saint Lucia and St. Vincent & the Grenadines.

The project is funded by the Italian Agency for Development Cooperation and administered by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). Implementing partners include the Caribbean Disaster Emergency Management Agency (CDEMA), the Caribbean Institute of Meteorology and Hydrology (CIMH) and the Italian International Centre on Environmental Monitoring (CIMA) Research Foundation.