Caribbean Agricultural Ujamaa

The Kwanzaa principle of Ujamaa (Cooperative Economics) runs strong through the goals and objectives of the  Caribbean Agricultural Research and Development Institute (CARDI) based on the island of Trinidad.

For decades, Caribbean governmental agencies have known that cooperative works in the area of agriculture would be of great benefit. Research began in the late 1940's on soils, cocoa and bananas through the Imperial College of Tropical Agriculture (ICTA) which provided research and instruction.

By 1955 a Regional Research Centre (RRC) had been set up, which increased the focus to areas such as Food Crops, Plant Breeding, Stored Products, Herbicides and Statistics. The ICTA was merged with the University College of the West Indies (UCWI - now the University of the West Indies, or UWI) in 1960 to create the Faculty of Agriculture (administration of RRC was transferred to the UCWI).

The nations of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) easily recognized the value of mutually sharing in the agricultural breakthroughs and contributed to the continuation of the development and research of the RCC.  Today, the CARDI (which was formally instituted in 1975) and the CARICOM nations Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, Belize, Dominica, Grenada, Guyana, Jamaica, Montserrat, St Kitts–Nevis, St Lucia, St Vincent and the Grenadines and Trinidad and Tobago provide basic funding along with the support of donor agencies.