Program Overview

This USDA grant will help the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands Department of Lands and Natural Resources (DLNR) fund projects that enhance the competitiveness of specialty crops in the territory and support specialty crop growers through marketing, education, and research.

Promoting And Marketing Of CNMI's Specialty Crops

The aim of this project is for the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Island Division of Agriculture to market and promote Northern Mariana Island specialty crops within the community. The challenge that encourages this project is due to the little knowledge of what specialty crops are. This project will enable the program to properly promote the specialty crops to all walks of life possible. The program will partner with local farmers, farmer's associations, and Garapan Public Market to help promote and market specialty crops that are locally grown to people within the community of the Commonwealth of the Northern Marianas. The main objective is to ensure that the locally grown specialty crops are properly marketed and extensively promoted within the community for the benefit of the people's health and their overall understanding of locally grown crops.

Plant Disease And Pest Detection And Management Program

Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Island Division of Agriculture will partner with local farmers within the CNMI (Saipan, Tinian, and Rota) to conduct on-farm trials, testing stable specialty crops within the CNMI. The purpose is to simply identify varieties that will thrive well and produce acceptable yield for the farmers. Each selected farmer will be responsible for maintaining the trial plots and reports back on information like type of crops grown, number of rows, length of rows, fertilizer used, method of farming applied, rate of germination, pest and diseases, environmental stressor, and plant growth rate.

Increased Crop Production (Import Substitution)

Plant disease and pest detection/management program will be a project implemented to help identify plant diseases and pest that are attacking or destroying specialty crops. In addition to identification, the program will be hosting workshops on various methods or techniques of managing pest and diseases. Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Island Division of Agriculture will partner with Northern Marianas College, Community Research Education and Extension Services to conduct a survey of specialty crops around Saipan, Tinian, and Rota; to identify common and imminent plant diseases and pest that are attacking crops around the island. The survey will enable the program to develop informative brochures or posters for public use on available pest and disease management. Poster and brochures will include information like, pest or disease descriptions, signs and symptoms, and management techniques.