In a collaborative working meeting convened by Dominican Republic’s Ministry of Agriculture, key stakeholders across the entire bitter cassava and casabe production chain have finalized a set of targeted measures designed to scale up domestic output, standardize planting practices, and enhance market access, all while protecting grower profit margins and maintaining consistent consumer supply.
The roundtable discussion was chaired by Agriculture Minister Francisco Oliverio Espaillat, and brought together a cross-section of participants: independent bitter cassava producers, industry associations, processing operators, marketing firms, as well as elected senators and provincial government representatives from the major growing regions of Dajabón and Santiago Rodríguez.
In opening remarks to the gathering, Minister Espaillat underscored the critical importance of striking a careful balance between total production volume and existing consumer market demand. This balance, he explained, is key to avoiding two costly outcomes: widespread oversupply that drives down prices and erodes producer income, and unexpected shortages that push up costs for everyday consumers. “We cannot allow either an abundance that destroys producers, or a scarcity that affects consumers. It’s a balance,” Espaillat stated.
Among the core commitments reached during the meeting, stakeholders agreed to implement coordinated, data-driven production planning, establish consistent monitoring of planting cycles across growing regions, and reinforce existing market stabilization mechanisms to reduce price volatility for bitter cassava sales.
Current cultivation data shared at the meeting puts total planted bitter cassava acreage across Dajabón and Santiago Rodríguez at more than 40,000 tareas, equal to roughly 14,000 acres, with crops currently in varying stages of development. Pedro González Toribio, general secretary of the national Cassava Producers Association, shared that new plantations are also being established in Santiago, Cotuí, and Montecristi, a clear sign of the crop’s expanding footprint and its untapped potential as a reliable source of raw material for casabe and other value-added food products.
Participants also flagged two key structural barriers to sector growth: limited access to affordable financing and gaps in access to modern farming equipment. In response, the Ministry of Agriculture has pledged to deliver expanded technical assistance to producers, and to back industry-led efforts to raise overall output per acre while cutting input and production costs.
Moving forward, producer organizations will hold internal discussions to review the agreed proposals and build a unified consensus position to present back to the ministry. A second follow-up meeting is scheduled to take place in the coming weeks, where stakeholders will review progress on initial commitments and advance the joint action plan for the sector.