Improving technical support for vegetable production in Mayotte through the creation of Recommended Technical Itineraries

Abstract

The Network for Innovation and Transfer in Agriculture (RITA) of Mayotte is piloting a project on Recommended Technical Itineraries (ITR). The agricultural school of Coconi is the intermediary of the project. The aim of this project, among others, is to improve technical support given to vegetable producers. The vegetable sector of Mayotte is marginal but in constant progress. The producers are seeking technical support but there are only two technicians for the entire island. The creation of three ITR documents on dwarf bean production, organic amendments and sustainable plant protection would improve technical support and sustainability of the sector. The tools used to create the documents were: establishing experimentations on dwarf beans and organic amendments but also interviewing farmers and gathering all results on research specific to Mayotte. The results of the experiments on dwarf beans showed that Contender is the most reliable variety that can be cultivated in Mayotte. The Primel and Cora varieties presented good yields but unfortunately it is not possible to purchase Primel in Mayotte and the Cora variety needs to be tested again because of the large dispersion of its yields. The dwarf bean production seems more adapted to the dry season. However the vegetable producers of Mayotte are not very enthusiastic about cultivating this crop because of the amount of labor needed during the harvesting period. The experimentation on organic amendments has not yet produced analyzable data. The experimentation will be conducted until June 2017. Out of the 20 farmers interviewed, 19 of them are using phytosanitary products to control pests but also dried chicken manure to fertilize their crops. Most of them do not collect any data of their productions. The three ITR documents created were distributed to technicians and are available on the internet web site of the RITA of Mayotte. These new tools will help improve technical support for the vegetable production sector in Mayotte.