 The Agriculture Ministry welcomes a new batch of certified farmers into the fold. This as a graduation ceremony for the 2020 farmer training for Region 6 was convened Monday. The training is one of the outputs of the enhancement of the efficiency of production distribution supply chains in the fruits and vegetables sector project, also called the Seven Crops Project, which has the overall aim of reducing the food import bill. The six-week course focused on a variety of topics including good agricultural practices, pesticide use and management, production scheduling, post-harvesting, technology and marketing and record keeping. Representative of the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture, ICA, in the eastern Caribbean states, Greg Rawlins, encourages farmers to continue to strengthen relationships with one another. The success factors will be the extent to which you work with each other. You have to network. You have to share information because very often a lot of information, as much as we do training and capacity building, a lot of the information and a lot of the knowledge is held by the very producers, farmers who have experience. And it's very, very important that farmers share information among themselves, that they network, that they support each other. And most importantly, that they work together. Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Agriculture, Barry Morphelisier, in highlighting the importance of ensuring farmers adopt the good agricultural practices learnt, noted that the training is in keeping with the theme for World Food Day 2020. Grow, nourish, sustain together. Our actions are our future. When you have the skills, you have to know how to align it to the theme. That theme there. How do we now? How do we grow, nourish, sustain together? How do you align it so that it becomes profitable, not for you alone, but for the entire country? So that is what you need to do. How you now go apply it and don't just let it fall by the wayside. So with that said, I want to wish the farmers and all of you who graduated here, very successful career pathways, have an excellent World Food Day, rest of Creole Heritage Month. But most of all, I want to see you transfer that knowledge into something meaningful for yourself and for your life, your families and your life skills. Participant of the farmer training, Alex Foshe expressed gratitude on behalf of the farmers to the Ministry of Agriculture, Region 6, and the Taiwan Technical Mission for the opportunity presented to them. As a young farmer and as a young man, I have acquired a substantial amount of information from this course in terms of good agricultural practices, post harvest handling, record keeping, and I could go on for hours, but the time is limited. I immediately put what I began to learn into practice, hence the reason I can be confident enough to go to my farm at any moment in time, and if anything may be wrong, be it soil wise, be it pest wise, that I would have some sort of knowledge which I have learned from this course, which I have obtained from this course, in how to sort the problem out and resolve it. Monday's graduation ceremony for the farmer training for Region 6 saw 70 farmers receiving their certification. From the information unit at the Ministry of Agriculture, I am Anisia Antoine reporting.