A new project entitled “Antrepriz Mayi moulen kalite” (Amamouk) (in french only) was launched in March 2018 to support pilot operations for the promotion of quality “ground maize” in the Southern region of the Republic of Haiti.
This action is part of the Food security project (SECAL) (in french only), which is implemented by the Haitian ministry of Agriculture, Natural resources and rural development (in french only). It follows on from a study conducted by GRET in 2016-2017 on downstream sectors of the maize production chain (in french only).
The Amamouk project promotes several technical and organisational innovations:
- it is supporting the various stakeholders in the sector to jointly draw up a guide on best practices for the production of ground maize, validated by State services;
- it provides support for testing of new procedures and equipment enabling certain operations to be mechanised (husking and degermination, sifting) and improvement of the quality of ground maize, a staple ingredient in many dishes in Haiti. The project is mobilising the owner of a small business – Ctrapa, an agricultural processing plant in Burkina Faso – to provide technical and practical advice, from one developing country to another;
- it supports the implementation of four units complying with quality standards required, working with these units to penetrate the packaged product market, which features products imported from Dominican Republic, Brazil and the United Sates, as well as institutional markets such as the World Food Programme (WFP)and the National school canteens programme (PNCS) (In French only).
The goal is to diversify market outlets and drive change in organisation of the sector. The latter is currently based on workshops managed by millers who provide grinding services to intermediaries, who are known locally as “Dames Sara”, and who buy maize from farmers or wholesalers, process it and sell it in the form of ground maize.
The Amamouk project aims to develop stronger collaboration between millers and Dames Sara using their services and their premises to sift products of various sizes after grinding and sometimes store them. The project will propose specific support to help these stakeholders to set up an association to create more processing units.
