Development of a Post-harvest and marketing strategy for Rodrigues Island, Mauritius

Rodrigues is a small autonomous outer island of the  Republic of Mauritius with limited agricultural land. Household farms provide the bulk of agricultural production through food crops and animal production. However, a significant proportion of these products are undervalued or go to waste because of poor post-harvest handling and management practices, low capacity to invest in appropriate packaging, transport and storage infrastructure, and poor marketing. 

The Commission for Environment of the Rodrigues Regional Assembly through its Agricultural and Environment Department solicited the support of the UNEP Switch Africa Green programme in 2019 to develop a post-harvest and marketing strategy for Rodrigues. The objectives were to reduce postharvest losses, improve food safety, security and nutrition and improve the livelihood of small farm producers. 

In March 2020, a total of 33 stakeholders met for the first meeting, the project’s launch, a sensitization training and stakeholder consultation on post-harvest management. Four more training sessions took take place in July 2020 because of the travel restrictions caused by Covid-19. In total, 113 beneficiaries and stakeholders were trained on post-harvest management, marketing strategies, and green certification for local produce.