KINGSTOWN, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, May 23 – Farmers from the Greiggs community took part in a one-day training workshop hosted by the St. Vincent and the Grenadines Community College (SVGCC), focusing on turning dasheen into value-added food products.
The workshop, held at the College’s Division of Technical and Vocational Education Food Science Lab, was designed to respond directly to farmers’ needs by providing practical training in agro-processing, food safety, product development, packaging, and small business opportunities.
Throughout the session, participants worked hands-on with dasheen, producing a range of products including frozen dasheen fries, crispy dasheen taco shells, flavoured dasheen chips, and dasheen pudding.
Facilitators guided farmers through each stage of production, from selecting and washing the raw crop through to slicing, pretreatment, frying, baking, seasoning, cooling, packaging, and labelling. Attention was also given to key processing controls such as managing browning, moisture levels, frying temperatures, contamination risks, and maintaining product quality.
The training also introduced participants to structured production systems including flow charts, Critical Control Points, batch coding, traceability, standardized recipes, and cost-plus pricing, aimed at supporting farmers to move from small-scale preparation to more consistent and profitable food production.
SVGCC highlighted the potential of dasheen to move beyond its traditional role as a staple crop, noting that with appropriate processing, branding, packaging, and pricing, it can be developed into snacks, convenience foods, desserts, and other products for local shops, farmers markets, supermarkets, and tourism outlets.
The atmosphere in the Food Science Lab was described as lively and practical, with farmers actively slicing, seasoning, frying, baking, shaping, packing, tasting, and displaying their finished products as part of a hands-on learning experience.
SVGCC said the initiative reflects its ongoing commitment to linking education with community needs, strengthening food security, reducing postharvest losses, and creating new income opportunities for rural communities across St. Vincent and the Grenadines.