Working Session
Working Session Report
28th March 2012
Food and Agricultural Research Council (FARC),
Reduit, Mauritius
Supported by the PAEPARD Project
Introduction
The Mauritius Breadfruit Sector Consortium organized a working session on the 28th March 2012 at the Food and Agricultural Research Council (FARC), Reduit. This working session was a follow-up to the Partnership Inception Workshoporganized by the consortium on 9thand 10th February 2012 in the framework of thePAEPARDproject, which is facilitating collaboration in the multi-stakeholder partnership. The participants of the working session comprised representatives from the Agricultural Research and Extension Unit (AREU), the University of Mauritius (UoM), Conserverie Sarjua Ltee, the Ministry of Agro-Industry and Food Security, the Food and Agricultural Research Council and the Professional Association of Producers and Exporters of Horticultural Products from Mauritius (APEXHOM).
Theobjectiveof the working session was to use the questions generated from the previous workshop as guidelines to identify research areas/ research themes along the value-chain, with potential for research and development in Mauritius.
Participants were engaged in discussions to identify and validate research areas.By the end of the working session, 10 Research and Development areas were generated which would be used for the next workshop, whereby research questions would be formulated under the identified themes and concept notes would be developed.
This report covers the proceedings of the half-day working sessionheld on 28th March 2012.
Welcome of participants
Mr. T. Gunesh welcomed the participants to the working session and did a recap on the consortium activities, starting from the meetings to Partnership Inception Workshop held in February 2012. He gave an over-view of themeeting held on 2nd March 2012 with Miss Catherine Guichard from ColeACP, who stressed upon the fact that Mauritius should contemplate on export of processed breadfruit products like breadfruit flour, viewing the high freight costs to EU and difficulties in extending the shelf-life of the fresh breadfruit and also consideringthe lower price of breadfruit from the Caribbean. During the discussions, assumption was made that Mauritius would be more competitive if it was able to cut its Freight on Board (FOB) cost by half and extend its production season so as to attain a year-round market. She suggested that a market survey be carried out to whether the demand was for fresh or processed breadfruit on the local and EU markets. If no profitable niche market were found for fresh breadfruit, Mauritius should rather go for processed breadfruit (especially flour).
Introduction to Working session
The presentation on the working session was made by Miss. N. Hosenally. In her presentation, she explained that the Partnership Inception Workshop held in February had two major objectives; which were for the consortium partners to get to know each other and to create a knowledge-base on breadfruit. She highlighted that this was just part of the process that would lead to the development of project proposals which would enable the consortium to secure funds from donors at National, Regional and International levels. From the Partnership Inception Workshop, there were unanswered questions in each of the 11 themes identified along the breadfruit value-chain during the group activities (from its origin to marketing and consumer preferences). The next steps that would lead to the development of project proposals were to locate areas of interest in the local context along the breadfruit value-chain and hence identify Research themes/Research areas, which would help in formulating Research questions and hence conceptualize and develop project proposals. The whole process is illustrated in Figure 1.
Figure 1. Flow of Consortium activities
Working session objective and activities
The facilitators explained to the consortium partners that the objective of the working session was to locate areas of interest in each of the 11 themes of the breadfruit value-chain, and hence identify research themes.
The 11 themes were labeled on flip-charts, and were placed on the wall. The participants were provided with the list of questions that were generated during the previous workshop. These were used as guidelines to assess areasof interest for Research and Development. The facilitators started with the origin and distribution of breadfruit (first theme) and the floor was open for discussion on areas of interest with a potential for Research and Development in the local context. Each research theme area that was proposed by the participants was discussed and agreed, before writing them down on a piece of paper and sticking them under the respective themes. After 2 hours of discussion, several research areas were generated for each theme.
These Research areas were then classified into 6 components of the breadfruit value chain. This is illustrated in the table below:
Table 1. Themes classified horizontally and and value-chain components vertically
Value-chains Components / Theme 1 / Theme 2 / Theme 3…. / Theme 11- Input Supply
- Farm Production
- Post-Harvest Treatment
- Logistics
- Processing
- Marketing
After the identification of research Areas (blue part), they were classified into the 6 components of the breadfruit value-chain (red part) as indicated by the arrows.
Research themes Generated
By the end of the working session, 10 Research and Development Areas were identified, which would be used for the next workshop to formulate research questions, and hence conceptualize and develop project proposals.
The Research Areas identified are shown in the table below:
Table 2. The identified Research areas
Reasearch Areas identified- What strategy to be adopted for propagation at National Level?
- Possibility of importation and evaluation of new germplasm in Mauritius
- Tools and Equipments for Harvest and post-harvest
- Tree Management
- Intercropping
- Handling and Post-harvest treatment
- Packaging
- Product development
- Value-addition
- Consumer preferences, education and products. (Gluten free?/nutritional aspects/sensitization)
Other issues discussed during the working session
- Breadfruit exporters claim that extending the shelf-life of the fresh product is a major issue for them since it takes 36 hours (from harvest time) for it to reach the European market and another 12 hours before it reaches to the customer (total of 48 hours). Hence, it would be best to find ways to extend the shelf life to 3-5 days.
- Breadfruit is considered to be gluten-free and beneficial to diabetic people, but no formal study has been carried out on it.
- Considering the situation of Mauritius in the export of breadfruit, we need to do research on whether consumer prefer the fresh product or processed (breadfruit flour for example)
- Breadfruit flour is more expensive than wheat flour because of the cost for drying the breadfruit. Is there a need to newer and more sustainable ways of drying?
- Looking at the issues that lie in the marketing of breadfruit, the consortium partners agreed that there is a need to do a market research and see how much is the demand and what kind of product are consumers looking for
- The use of breadfruit as a substitute for wheat flour and reducing our dependency on imports has been acknowledged by the government, and maybe it is not only a research area, but also we should look at the aspect of sensitizing the population
- If presently we are not able to extend the shelf-life of breadfruit, we can do minimal processing (chips, wedges etc) and export them as frozen products.
- When processing the breadfruit, a lot of waste is generated, and this can be used for animal feed or compost.
- From the discussions during the working session, consortium members feel that their priority is to pull customers and there is a need for massive sensitization.
- In order to have new varieties of breadfruit, we will need to import germplasm fromHawaii for example, which will cost a lot and funding would be required
- Presently, the main pest of breadfruit is the snail, which grazes the plants when they are very young. Stressed trees are prone to attack by a pest called “violon du manguier”
- A breadfruit tree takes 3-5 years to be productive and the planting density is 8m by 8m. up to 2 years, breadfruit trees may be inter-cropped with papaya trees
- In order to monitor the temperature during transportation of breadfruit by air, there is a thermometer which is available on the market, which may enable us to know whether the problem with shelf-life of breadfruit is due to temperature fluctuations during transport.
- Ethylene from pineapple (To add here)
- Also, during transportation, breadfruit should not be in contact with ethylene and there are ethylene absorbers that can be used.
- Only small sized breadfruits are being processed for flour by Conserverie Sarjua Ltee and bigger ones (greater than 1.2 kg) are exported. Export a small quantity to Paris, where the cost of exporting is higher as there are only 15kg/carton, with only one layer of breadfruit while when exporting to UK, there are 2 layers of breadfruit with a total of 22-23 kg/carton
- Presently, breadfruit is not being processed into flour since fresh breadfruits are not being exported.
- Wrapping of breadfruit with a cling film to reduce evapo-transpiration is also not advisable since formation of water droplets inside will contribute to softening of the breadfruits.
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