Page 9 - SAC-Gender-Responsive-Market-Analysis-Final-Report-July-19-2021 (1)

3. Methodology

Opportunities and Challenges in sub-sector selection

A rigorous product selection process focused on the needs and wants of women and

youth in agriculture identified a portfolio with strong potential to drive incomes. There
were also a number of common issues and opportunities identified across the region:

• A basket of crops provides resilience and diversified income

High-value vegetables (primarily fresh produce) for import substitution and Roots & Tubers (for
domestic consumption) are common to most markets. Herbs & Spices also have regional applicability
due to the potential for export, added-value processing and import substitution.

• Baseline data is extremely limited and not disaggregated
In particular, almost no data exists on incomes and roles of women in current value chains. This makes

estimating incremental income extremely difficult.
• Costs and pricing are volatile and highly dependent on circumstance
Yields and costs of production depend on location, size of operations, seasonality of crops, climatic

conditions etc. so a large number of assumptions are required to generate averages. In addition,
pricing is a snapshot in time and highly dependent on circumstance, supply chain and end-customers.

• Due to these limitations, the focus has been on primary production
This impacts most farmers and, while issues of access to finance and land are a major barrier, costs
and pricing are less dependent on investment and facilities than value-add processing which is highly

specific to the supply chain in question, size, product being produced and investment.

Sustainable Agriculture in the Caribbean (SAC) Project

Slide 9