 To address the pressing need for food security and offer much-needed relief to farmers across St. Lucia, contending with ever-rising production costs, the Region 3 head office in Reach for Denver on Wednesday played host to a subsidized agricultural input sale. As a flagship initiative of the second phase of the Seven Crops project, this event, organized by the Taiwan Technical Mission, with assistance from the Ministry of Agriculture, showcased essential inputs like crates, pit moths and fertilizer, critical for ensuring successful crop growth. Chief of the Taiwan Technical Mission, Daniel Lee, expressed his organization's unwavering commitment to supporting the framework for food security, currently under development by the island's agricultural leaders. It's very important because the freight of the international trade is getting higher and higher, especially the fertilizer, and the nuclear war makes it even worse. So, lots of farmers have challenges to keep producing, and it's a high risk for security of St. Lucia. So, through this input sale, we can encourage farmers to keep producing food for the people. Amid the supply chain challenges currently being encountered, Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries, Food Security and Rural Development Honorable Alfred Prosper highlights that the input sale has proven to be a notable achievement, solidifying its position as a fundamental element within the area of activities aimed at mitigating the escalating costs of agricultural and farming inputs on the island. We know the importance of providing support to our farmers, especially in regards to increasing our food production and in an effort to reduce our food import bill. We recently experienced the passage of tropical storm bread, and a number of our farmers were impacted, and so what the ministry is doing is to provide that support that farmers need at this time to help boost our food production and meet our food security needs. We recently provided support in the sum of 2.4 million EC dollars to assist farmers following the passage of the tropical storm, because we knew very well how it impacted the planting and banana sector, sub sectors, and we are very concerned that as a country which needs to continue exporting bananas, a country that must feed itself, we are happy as a government, as a ministry, to provide that level of support to our farmers. Minister Prosper says that this initiative complements the other efforts currently being undertaken by the government to provide subsidies for various inputs to ensure that food security is achieved. From the communications unit of the Ministry of Agriculture, I am Anisia Antoine reporting.