UWI Goes Commercial

University's move to produce cassava Flour will save Ja 1b anually

THE University of the West Indies (UWI), Mona campus, says it has forged a partnership with Continental Baking Company Limited and the Government to produce cassava flour, saying that the move will save Jamaica billions of dollars over time.

 Pro-Vice-Chancellor and Principal Professor Archibald McDonald said that the project will hopefully encourage investors to partner with the UWI on other ventures.

 “We feel that once manufacturers see that this is not just the University of the West Indies talking, this is not something theoretical, this is something which can be converted into commercial activity, many of them will come on board,” he told yesterday’s Jamaica Observer Monday Exchange.

 Professor McDonald, as well as Professor Ishenkumba Kahwa, deputy principal; Professor Denise Eldemire- Shearer, campus co-ordinator, graduate studies and research; and Professor Densil Williams, executive director Mona School of Business and Management, pointed to the cassava flour project as they highlighted the UWI’s intention to use this year’s Research Days to focus on the impact that research can have on the economy.

 “We need to improve our communications, we need to put our research out there more in simplified form for all to understand.

 But we are going a step further, we are going to produce cassava flour and we are going to have one of the large bakeries which will produce cassava bread from this flour,” Professor McDonald said.

 The gains to the country, he noted, could be significant. “We estimate that if we contract farmers and so on, we are going to save, by replacing the flour that we import… $1 billion per year,” McDonald said.

 Based on Professor McDonald’s statements, the project is far past the conception stage. “We already have the cassava bread, I have had a sample.

 We are very close, we had cooperated with the Ministry of Education and we have access to land owned by the Government of Jamaica in St Elizabeth, we are collaborating with them on this project,” he told the Monday Exchange.

 A cassava processing plant donated to the university by the Colombian Government, through the Jamaican Government, is en route to the island.

 “We are working through the Ministry of Agriculture and they have decided that the university is the entity that will initiate [the project].

 To be honest, we are behind schedule with the plant, it should have been delivered the end of February and we have now set the deadline for the end of March, so it’s not long from now. We need a building to house the plant and that is being constructed,” Professor McDonald said.

 He also said that the university will soon start producing other consumer products from the vast range of research taking place on the campus.

 “So, for example… very soon we will be drinking UWI Blue Mountain Teas, because we are about to go on a very large project in collaboration with government entities,” he said. “We hope private entities will come on board.”

 BY ALICIA DUNKLEY-WILLIS - Senior staff reporter