This project will involve soil conservation, agro forestry and crop improvement linked to marketing initiatives designed to increase farmer incomes.

UCT’s agro program is designed to increase the number of commercial trees by nursery production of seedlings and by top-grafting the sour orange trees which grow in abundance throughout the countryside. UCT has selected the varieties which demonstrated the highest crops revenues: Clementine, Mandarine de Jacmel, Tangelo, and sweet oranges such as Washington Navel and Valencia.

Citrus crops in the Caribbean are currently threatened by the regional expansion of the tristeza disease. Although tristeza has not yet been officially identified as present in Haiti, the risk of its introduction and the widespread destruction of citrus cannot be discounted. As a result, UCT is researching tristeza-resistant rootstock varieties, Swingle and Carrizo, with the objective of building up local supplies of resistant rootstock material in the country to protect against the regional expansion of this disease.