(ZIZ News) — As the 2015 Agriculture Open Day gets underway on Thursday, officials at the Department of Agriculture are particularly pleased with the expected launch of a new facility.
Lionel Stevens of the Plant Propagation Unit spoke to ZIZ about the services that will be provided at the new Packing House.
“Well, the pack house is where we have cold storage capacity so that we’re gonna assist farmers in terms of when we have an oversupply on the market we’ll have some storage.
“It’s also an area where we’re gonna feature some agro-processing where persons who are into this type of activity could come and use the different machinery like the hammer mill, the dryers and so forth, to help with their particular product,” he explained.
He said the facility is versatile and will assist in preparing goods for export and storing produce in case of a natural disaster.
“Where we can have the foods come and be washed, graded, sorted and so forth, so when that time comes to export, it is already there. The packing house would help also in times of disaster. We have the storage capacity so farmers could harvest what they have and store it so even after the disaster we still would have food. So that’s one of the main reasons for the packing house,” he said.