New Zealand funded livestock project kicks off in Saint Lucia
The project’s New Zealand funded technical staff alongside staff from Saint Lucia’s Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries, Food Security and Rural Development.
The New Zealand Climate Smart Agriculture Initiative: Latin America and the Caribbean (NZCSA: LAC) supports a project on ‘Assessment of small ruminant and non-ruminant intensive production systems for waste recovery and re-use’ in Saint Lucia.
In March 2025, the NZCSA LAC technical team attended their first set of meetings with farmers in Saint Lucia. They visited Nineteen farms across five agricultural regions.
Farmers support the aims of the project and appreciate the collaboration between New Zealand and Saint Lucia. The farmers recognised that better management of manures and waste was essential to prevent environmental damage.
Currently, there are limited alternatives to reduce animal-derived greenhouse gas emissions, of which manure and on-farm organic waste management is key. Efficient capture of manure and on-farm waste emissions conserves important and costly nutrients that can be recycled to cropping land. It reduces costs and improving efficiency while limiting effects on the environment.
This project feeds into Saint Lucia’s Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries, Food Security and Rural Development’s (MAFFSRD) ‘waste recovery and re-use’ plan. It will provide new options to better manage the waste, as a fertilizer. During meetings, MAFFSRD staff stressed they are focussed on advancing direct mitigation of agricultural GHG alongside its climate adaptation programmes. It aligns with their obligations to the Paris Agreement and other UNFCCC programmes. As a Small Island Developing State (SIDS), Saint Lucia wishes to lead other similar nations in this emerging policy space.
This project is funded through the New Zealand Government’s Climate Smart Agriculture Initiative, as part of its contribution to the Global Research Alliance on Agricultural Greenhouse Gases (GRA). It is helping countries to effectively account for, and mitigate, their agricultural greenhouse gas emissions. For more information, please visit the New Zealand Climate Smart Agriculture Initiative website.
Left: Working with small holder pig farmers in Saint Lucia to improve productivity without increasing GHG emissions
Right: Assessing options for waste recovery and re-use on small holder Chicken farms in Saint Lucia
Efficient capture of manure and on farm waste emissions conserves important and costly nutrients that can be recycled.