An Integrated Approach to

Small Farmers' Development in the OECS Countries-

 The CARDATS Experience

 Hardath Singh and Gilbert McSween
 Caribbean Agricultural and Rural Development
 Advisory and Training Service (CARDATS)
 St. George's, Grenada, W.I.


 CARDATS is an agricultural development project which of-
fers a multi-disciplinary package of services to limited groups
of small farmers in each of the OECS Member States within
the Caribbean Community. The package of services in-
cludesassistance in farm planning, provision of inputs, pro-
duction technology, and marketing. The modus operandi is
based on the concept that sensible and effective coordination
of all the links in the productivity chain--from planning,
through production, to marketing-is essential for successful
farming.
 Over the more than six years of its existence, the project's
most persistent concern has been to improve the economic
returns to the farmers with whom it has been associated. Since


these farmers have, for the most part, been food crop growers,
the production of vegetables and other root crops has received
greatest attention in CARDATS' farm programming.
 CARDATS' programs, as described above, must obviously
have an impact on associated rural communities. Similarly,
rural situations influence, in some measure, the development
processes undertaken in these programs. Within the
CARDATS experience are many instances where farmer at-
titudes and responses to project initiatives are apparently con-
ditioned by social and cultural influences. It is evident that
these must be clearly understood and appreciated if mean-
ingful and lasting small farmer development is to be achieved.


 One envisages economic agricultural development as an in-
tegral component in the development of the rural community.
Since agriculture is commonly the only significant economic ac-
tivity in the rural environment, there is urgency in many com-
munities to upgrade it to the level of an efficient business capable
of supporting and sustaining much of the costs involved in
developing other aspects of rural life.
 The basic concepts at the centre of CARDATS' approach to
small farmer development in the OECS States are first, that the
materials and services essential for efficient, businesslike produc-
tion must be available to the farmers at adequate levels; second,
that the delivery of these materials and services must be timely.
These requirements for effective farming are not unusual. In fact,
they are considered normal in the production of sugar, bananas,
and other export crops. However, programs for timely provision
and delivery of essential goods and services to the small food crop
producers in the project area are unusual and in many places have
never been attempted.
 In the case of the export commodities it is not unusual for a
single institution, usually a commodity association, to oversee
and coordinate the supply of materials and services (including
planning, supply of inputs, technological advice, and marketing)
to the growers. On the other hand, food crop farmers are serviced
by a number of independent, autonomous bodies, usually
Government departments or statutory boards, which-however
well-intentioned -experience considerable difficulty in achieving
the kind of coordination and integration of services that the
farmers need. Thus, extension services, input supply houses,
credit institutions, and marketing boards frequently work at cross
purposes and the farmers experience shortages, failures and loss.
Perhaps the time has come to service local food production by
small farmers more adequately and to restructure the supporting
institutions in a manner more conducive to increased productivity
and profitability for the said farmers.


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Objectives of the CARDATS Project
 The CARDATS project's long range objectives are to assist the
OECS Governments in their efforts to promote small farmer
development, leading to increased domestic food and export crop
production and marketing on a sustained basis, contributing to
solving the problems of rural unemployment, as well as
stimulating better rural conditions.
 CARDATS' immediate objectives are as follows:
 1. to improve farmers' skills in agricultural production and
 marketing;
 2. to implement efficient and effective small farm production
 systems;
 3. to assist, through the promotion of coordination and train-
 ing, the institutions supporting small farmer production
 and thereby rendering them capable in due course of
 undertaking the essential support functions now being
 performed by CARDATS;
 4. to promote the organization of farmer groups capable of
 ensuring the supply of essential services and inputs to small
 producers;
 5. to provide services and inputs to small farmers; and
 6. to develop and demonstrate improved management
 systems through which the required services and inputs to
 small farmers can be delivered on a cost effective basis.

Description of Project Area
 The seven small island states which together constitute the
Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) are Antigua
and Barbuda, Commonwealth of Dominica, Grenada, Montser-
rat, St. Kitts-Nevis, St. Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines.
These territories share the same currency and have combined area
of 1,170 square miles and a population of 520,000.
 In 1966, all the countries joined the Caribbean Free Trade
Association (CARIFTA). Since 1974 they have been members of


 PROCEEDINGS of the CARIBBEAN FOOD CROPS SOCIETY-VOL. XX