The Caribbean Region’s ability to rebound from adverse agricultural events has been strengthened by the installation of a cold room at the Bodles Research Station in Old Harbour.
The Cold Room, which comes at a cost of 6 million JMD, will supplement the facility’s work in seed storage. It is funded by the Investment Plan for the Caribbean Regional Track of the Pilot Program for Climate Resilience, as part of the project’s support of regional applied adaptation initiatives. This is being executed with the support of the Caribbean Agricultural Research and Development Institute (CARDI).
According to Georgia Golding, plant breeding officer at Bodles, “the cold room installation will ensure that the seeds stored will be viable for a longer time”. These seeds represent the facility’s foundation planting material, a portion of which is made up of climate-resilient crop varieties.
This installation is part of a larger investment which saw the purchase of a large seed batch-dryer and the refurbishing of the facility’s seed bank facilities. The refurbished seed bank facilities were formally handed over in October 2019.
The Investment Plan for the Caribbean Regional Track of the Pilot Program for Climate Resilience is a 10.9 Million USD, 5-year project, executed through the Project Management Unit of UWI’s Mona Office of Research and Innovation. Project funding comes from the Climate Investment Funds (CIF), with financial oversight from the Inter-American Development Bank.
The project oversees six countries: Jamaica, Haiti, Grenada, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Dominica and St. Lucia.
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