 Global Affairs Canada and the World University Services of Canada wasque through the Sustainable Agriculture in the Caribbean Project, recently commissioned the Black Bay Farmers Cooperative Vegetable Siddling Nursery, renovating the Shade House, and equipping it with the necessary tools to enhance the efficiency of siddling production. Support was extended towards cultivating grafted tomato siddlings, offering growers plants resilient to fusarium and bacterial wilt, in an effort to enable prolonged harvesting periods. Members of the cooperative also received hands-on training in vegetable grafting. Country coordinator of OSC's SAC Project, Dr Nadia Paket-Ansum, underscores the significance of such interventions in improving agricultural sustainability and resilience within the sector. I'm hearing from most of the farmers that last year had a tremendous void in tomato production. Apparently that's the highest that St. Lucia has seen in terms of the cost of production, or even the price point that it's sold to consumers. And we don't want that. We don't want everybody to consume tomatoes. We know how important it is to men's health. And for the Black Bay Cooperative, a small injection of just over $17,000 USD motivated them to actually restore other greenhouses. I know they received the support of the government of St. Lucia as well. And it's important that through the grafting chambers and the training that they've learned on Friday is they now have the capacity to do their own grafting and they have a price point that the grafted seedlings can be sold to farmers. It's really sustainable for us because generally farmers cannot access grafted seedlings. And farmers now will be able to access through Black Bay grafted seedlings. My understanding is there's a capacity of 1,000 seedlings through the grafted chamber at any one given point. So we are happy that this exercise has been extended to farmers and we are elated and looking forward to seeing a bumper crop of tomatoes in the years to come. Deputy Director of Agricultural Services, expressed heartfelt appreciation to WUSC for their ongoing support in fostering the sustainability of the agriculture sector while also emphasizing the necessity of implementing measures to ensure the longevity and effective management of these investments. From the end of the Ministry of Agriculture, we are glad to be partnering with WUSC, particularly on this sustainable agriculture project in the Caribbean. This is just one of the many investments that are being made around the island and we're looking forward to a lot more of these investments and that sort of support and we implore the farmers here today to ensure that we embrace the support that is given. In any situation, there is always the opportunity cost that any resource that you get can be put to 100 other uses and so when you are chosen as a beneficiary for scarce resources, always ensure that you take steps to optimize its use and to implore your members to appreciate it and to utilize it. This is not the first time that Blackberry is going to seedling production but sometimes in the past the members would not support it, they were buying seedlings from all over the place so we're hoping that with this investment that we'll be able to produce a higher quality seedling and ensure that the farmers are able to sustain their production schedules. Through the efforts of the Agriculture Ministry, Global Affairs Canada, and the World University Services of Canada, this initiative holds the promise of improving the country's food security by diversifying crops, improving yields and quality, and strengthening resilience to environmental challenges. From the Communications Unit of the Ministry of Agriculture, I am Anitia Antoine reporting.