IICA-CBF EbA Project Newsletter

Green Business – Vetiver Engineering and Value-Added Products

The IICA-CBF EbA Project as its second key must strengthen the livelihood opportunities of its implementing communities, either through the existing businesses or alternatives based on the implementation of EbA-CSS-Nature-based interventions.

From its inception in 2020 EbA Project Partner IAMovement has engaged directly through our CBO/NGOs with the ten communities in the four implementing countries in business opportunities utilizing vetiver systems, handicraft and product development. To date the Project has engaged with more than three hundred community residents in either VS-VEEP installations and nursery operations and /or Handicraft Training.

In April 2022, the last of IAMovement’s Handicraft Training was completed in Antigua with the direct collaboration with the Gilbert Agriculture Rural Development Centre (GARDC).And the die has been cast for the formalized Business Development actions of the Project to identify at least ten community individuals or groups to formalize and register businesses in the four countries.

In the 2nd quarter 2022 the activities towards the Registration of green businesses will be coordinated by the IICA Delegations, identifying markets (trade opportunities and clients), training and capacity building in business management, continued training to improve the technical business skills, branding and sales. We will be collaborating with the countries’ Ministries and Agencies with responsibility for Entrepreneurship, Business Development, Community and Cultural Development and Hospitality Industries towards sustainability of our green businesses.

GARDC product label and packaged soaps


VS Site Inspections: CCIF (l) & ET (r)


PSSSVC Vetiver grass harvesting for Handicraft

Climate Smarting our Agriculture – Farmers obtain direct support of IICA

Climate Smart Agriculture (CSA) training was facilitated in the four project countries from March 5th-20th 2022 when a total of seventy-nine farmers and twenty-three technicians received EbA-CSA training from IICA Soil & Water Management Specialists (S&WMS). The IICA Delegations and CBOs/NGOs hosted thirty-three females and forty-six males at these sessions which was well received by participants’ testimonials.

The demand for additional CSA firsthand training was well articulated by the farming community which quickly cemented the next step of forming in-country farmers’ caucuses for the express purpose of providing on-farm interventions and scholarships towards on-farm CSA practices.

In April-May 2022 the S&WMS developed the criteria for farmers’ identification and selection and advised the in-country teams on their logistical arrangements and on-farm conditions of the selected farmers for preparedness to continue these S&WM CSA interventions commencing June 2022. A total of eight farmers (two per country) are scheduled to receive direct support for CSA interventions as scholarships, tools, materials, goods and services.

Assessment of a farm during CSA training in Antigua

The wider Caribbean farming community will benefit from the experiences of farmers caucus’ intensified training and firsthand experiences through virtual materials, workshops, seminars moderated by IICA S&WMS, Delegations, Ministries and Agencies of Agriculture, Climate and Environment.

Climate Smart Agriculture training in EbA project countries 

Saving Cooks Landfill – A Silver Lining

In late November 2021, the newly installed vetiver seedlings/slips at Cooks Landfill suffered high mortality due to toxic poisoning from the landfill seepage. The project suffered a terrible set-back of our plans for establishing a formidable environmental nature based solution at the Landfill and for saving the mangrove. The tremendous hard work and in-country Team of GARDC, Ministry of Agriculture, Management of Cooks Landfill, IICA Delegation and the EbA Project Team  was not lost, but the EbA Team immediately kicked into action to mitigate this risk.

EbA Team at Cooks Landfill for Risk Mitigation

An external injection of cash resources was made in December 2021 by the Soil & Water Management Specialist, IICA (S&WMS) to engage in intensive soil and water testing and procurement of goods and services to research and prepare vetiver seedlings more resilient to the harsh conditions at Cooks Landfill for planned replanting later in 2022.

In January-May 2022 the Antigua Team of GARDC, IICA, Ministry of Agriculture, CARDI and S&WMS engaged in activities designed to improve the plant conditions at Cooks Landfill by providing additional ‘irrigation’ water to the surviving plants, mulching  and more intensified care and maintenance.

Mulched young and mature vetiver plants, Cooks Landfill

At GARDC’s vetiver nursery a variety of composite soil mixtures were prepared containing varying percentages of soil from the Cooks Landfill and recommended  sources in which vetiver slips would be propagated. This allowed for the monitoring of the threshold of soil conditions to assure survival when these slips/seedlings are planted at the Landfill.

The risk to implementation at Cooks Landfill of the vetiver plant installation as designed in EbA Project has provided a real-world experience which is being managed through adaptive research and learning experience based on the environmental conditions. The Team has mitigated with the support of the CBF by a modified design for implementation at the Landfill, the essential aspects for determining success; a strong collaborative team,  a ready and willing CBO in GARDC and the collaboration of the Antigua and Barbuda Agencies and Ministries. 

GARDC continues to manage its vetiver nursery in readiness for continued site installations, maintenance and preparation of source of material for handicraft and product development; as EbA Project business opportunities. 

Vetiver experiment with different soil ratios from Cook’s Landfill and vetiver nursery

In the EbA Pipeline

Youth Voice – Project Creative Arts, Culture and Behavioural Change

East Yard Enterprises on June 15, 2022, commenced the Creative Arts, Culture and Behavioural Change consultancy to enable a strategically engaging programme with the youth of the Project’s 4 communities to give a voice, change perceptions and behaviours related to our youth to environmental stewardship, replicating, upscaling and mainstreaming the EbA measures. In the next quarter July-September 2022 the Project will launch an innovative youth campaign on traditional and social media to fully engage our school children aged 10-14 years (in the first instance) on climate, community flexibility to environment change, nature, protected areas, agriculture and its protection.

Community Drone Training – we will be monitoring to preserve

The University of Florida, due to unplanned issues, was forced to postpone its four in-country Community Drone Monitoring Training from April 2022 to September 2022. In Antigua, Dominica, St. Lucia and Tobago at least forty persons comprising community residents and Ministry personnel will be trained using DJI Mavic Air 2 Drones on the ecological spatial monitoring of the areas in the EbA Project communities installed with vetiver grass in 2021-2022. Thereafter the community leads will on a monthly basis collect data in main monitoring areas from preloaded flight plans and upload these data which will be interpreted by the experts at the University of Florida. Drone data will be de-mystified into the language of the impact of vetiver grass on improving the ecological environment, improving the long-term conditions of the agricultural lands and how in micro-environments we can improve the whole; both upland and marine from ridge-to-reef. 

How Well are our Communities Benefiting from IICA-CBF EbA Project

The University of Florida continued to train community fifteen residents, Ministry of Agriculture personnel and CBOs on the ethical collection of data on social and ecological improvements of participants trained by the many EbA Project interventions: VS-VEEP, Handicraft, CSA and Drone Monitoring.

In September 2022, each data collection representative will conduct interviews of persons/participants of the implementation of the EbA Project. The data of each community will be analyzed as the Project’s baseline of training exposure and repeated in six-eight months to assess the impact of adoption of training activities, to individuals, their families and wider community, in terms of building climate/environmental resilience, economic improvements, community participation and overall knowledge transfer which has occurred.