Two officers from the Ministry of Agriculture, Food Security and Enterprise (MAFSE) are currently in El Salvador from 15-18th August on a technical exchange visit. While in El Salvador they will visit with the Centro Nacional de Tecnología Agropecuaria y Forestal (CENTA) and fruit tree producers to gather information on research and technology transfer in non-traditional fruit crops such as dragon fruit, soursop, coconut, pineapple and avocado. The delegation is accompanied by a fruit tree producer and a BAHA official responsible for the regulation of imports of plant material since a main objective of the technical visit is to identify quality germplasm for introduction.

This exchange is being coordinated by the Belize and El Salvador Delegations of the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA) and is being funded through the ongoing Technical Cooperation titled “Regional Collaboration, Capacity Building and Development of Germplasm Management for Nontraditional Fruit Tree In Belize” under the Unique Fund of IICA. This technical cooperation project aims to provide direct support to MAFSE to develop a germplasm collection for non-traditional fruit trees including Pitahaya, Coconut, Passion Fruit, Avocado and Soursop, as well as to contribute necessary resources to conduct research and development, coordinate technical capacity building and, facilitate field exchanges between partner institutions and industry stakeholders (public and private) for the advancement of the non-traditional fruit tree industry in Belize.