As the Caribbean deals with the impact of climate change, adaptation is a major priority.

That’s why one island is launching a new project to make its agriculture more robust against the ramifications of climate change.

Grenada has partnered with the Germany Agency for International Cooperation to establish “self-sufficient communities” through permaculture, or the use of modern science for sustainability.

“We’re setting up a model where we will be teaching permaculture, so people will come in and learn the skills and go back into their communities and share those skills,” said John Stollmeyer Director of Caribbean Permaculture Consultants. “The first rule in permaculture is to find a yield, that means a product to take to market, and what we stress is to find simple processes, very low tech processes that can create a high value product,”

Naba Francis, technical officer at German Agency for International Cooperation, said the island’s agriculture sector stands to benefit tremendously from the adaptation of climate smart strategies.

““I believe that climate smart agricultural practices are the ways that we can build the agriculture sector in Grenada so that it can adapt to the climate changes,” she said. “The agriculture sector has been identified as one the most vulnerable sectors to climate change, and it’s very important that we build a climate resilient agriculture sector.”

The project’s model farm will be open for experiments by the end of this year.