On Thursday, June 18, the Taiwan Technical Mission held a pineapple workshop in Vieux-Fort where agricultural extension officers and local farmers were invited to come observe and learn better methods of crop cultivation.

The workshop was facilitated by Mr. Alexis who is the head of the extension officers from Region 6. He is an agronomist with more than 15 years experience in the agricultural field and is known as a pineapple expert in Saint Lucia.

During the training, Eric Chen, who is the specialist from the Taiwan Technical Mission also introduced the current system of pineapple cultivation in Taiwan and again emphasized the importance of production scheduling.

The workshop was divided into two parts. The first was the indoor section and the second was outdoor implementation.

The indoor section focused on the management of diseases and pests, fertilizers and chemical application, cultivation management and what the farmers should do during the flower initiation and harvesting period. The farmers even received an exquisite pineapple guideline brochure, which was designed by Jeremie Wong.

The outdoor section discussed what to notice when using the sprayer and implementation of spraying the Ethen.

If the farmers know the benefit of production scheduling and are able to successfully implement the technique, everybody can enjoy the beauty of the pineapples, also farmers can avoid harvesting at the same time which will give them a better price.