Micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) continue to serve as a major source of employment and income generation in the agriculture and tourism sectors in countries of the Caribbean Community and Common Market (CARICOM). [Author] Most MSMEs are small businesses run by families or by a few individuals. [Author] While this helps to keep labour and overhead costs to a minimum, it creates a suboptimum economy of scale. [Author] Competition is also increased because of the large number of small operations and challenges that hinder penetration of the export market, especially with the increasing complexities of international standards demanded by developed countries. [Author] Additionally, rising standards of living in many CARICOM countries have increased demand from domestic consumers for higher quality food and assurances of food safety. [Author] This creates the need for urgent measures that will help MSMEs in CARICOM to become more efficient in crop production, supply chain management, food processing and packaging techniques and to gain a better understanding of the changing nature of the domestic, regional and international markets. [Author] This technical manual focuses on food packaging and seeks to highlight its critical role in reducing food loss and waste. [Author] Users of this manual will also be exposed to packaging techniques that help improve the marketability of agricultural commodities produced and processed in the region. [Author] This potential has been fostered by an increasing middle-class population, a vibrant market for tourism, a diversity of cultures and, thanks to an increasing diaspora, increasing markets in importing countries. [Author]

Volume 1 (A and B) covers international organizations throughout the world, comprising their aims, activities and events.

Food processing offers excellent income-generating opportunities for those wishing to start up in business. With this in mind, this comprehensive manual provides a detailed description of how to process milk into a variety of dairy products including cheese and milk confectionary. Topics covered include markets, equipment and facilities, managing a dairy, and health and safety issues. The guide should be read in conjunction with volume 1 in the series (see 1041), which introduces aspects such as technical know-how, business skills and customer care.

Agricultural trade is a major factor determining food security in Caribbean countries. In these small open economies, exports are essential, whilst imports provide a large part of the food supply. This book examines various dimensions of trade policy and related issues and suggests policies to address trade and food security and rural development linkages. It is as a guide and reference documents for agricultural trade policy analysts, trade negotiators, policy-makers and planners in both the public and private sectors.

Does enterprise participation in global markets ensure sustainable income growth? Policies have often been designed in the belief that this is true, but competitiveness and participation in international markets may take very different forms, and developing countries do not always benefit. This book presents a series of rich and original field studies from Latin America, conducted by the authors with the same consistent methodological approach, and represents a theory-generating exercise within clusters and economic development literature. The main question addressed is how Latin American small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) may participate in global markets in ways that provide for sustainable income growth, the “high road” to competitiveness. In contrast, the “low road” is often typically followed by small firms from developing countries, which often compete by squeezing wages and revenues rather than by increasing productivity, salaries, and profits.

Using sustainable food value chain development (SFVCD) approaches to reduce poverty presents both great opportunities and daunting challenges. SFVCD requires a systems approach to identifying root problems, innovative thinking to find effective solutions and broad-based partnerships to implement programmes that have an impact at scale. In practice, however, a misunderstanding of its fundamental nature can easily result in value-chain projects having limited or non-sustainable impact. Furthermore, development practitioners around the world are learning valuable lessons from both failures and successes, but many of these are not well disseminated. This new set of handbooks aims to address these gaps by providing practical guidance on SFVCD to a target audience of policy-makers, project designers and field practitioners. This first handbook provides a solid conceptual foundation on which to build the subsequent handbooks. It (1) clearly defines the concept of a sustainable food value chain; (2) presents and discusses a development paradigm that integrates the multidimensional concepts of sustainability and value added; (3) presents, discusses and illustrates ten principles that underlie SFVCD; and (4) discusses the potential and limitations of using the value-chain concept in food-systems development. By doing so, the handbook makes a strong case for placing SFVCD at the heart of any strategy aimed at reducing poverty and hunger in the long run.