 Good day again, viewers, and welcome to the program, Agriculture on the Move. I am Philip Sidney, your host. Today, I have two distinguished gentlemen with me, and you know why I call them distinguished. They are retired extension officers in the Department of Agriculture. So today we are reminiscing of, of course, I am part and parcel of that program today, not only your host, but I will tell you about my journey in the Ministry of Agriculture. With me is, to my immediate right, is Mr. Stephen Best, and next to him is Mr. Hilary La Force. Gentlemen, welcome to the program. Thank you. Great. I would like to start off with you, La Force, because remember, we started off as young training officers at the Union Agricultural Cadet course, and of course we had two years, that is since 1968, I can remember when I came in there, so two years. So in your recollection, tell us, tell St. Lucia about the objective of that course. Okay, thank you very much Sidney. You recall that St. Lucia was an agrarian society, where in fact agriculture was the mainstay of this country's economy, even before the advent of bananas. You remember, again too, our country was dominated by larger states, there were a number of them, the biggest being Mackey State, with over 3,000 acres, and in the early days before we had our own agricultural technicians, we had people from Jamaica who came down to these islands to assist in the development of the agricultural industry. One person came to mind, or a few of them came to mind was the late Harry Atkinson, people like Stanley Mullins, and there was also this gentleman who used to be the SLBJ, Gage and so on. Okay, so the government of the day, and the ministry of agriculture thought that there was need to have some trained agricultures, or for two fronts, one to be technicians to assist farmers who were involved in agriculture, and at the same time to train people to go out there and get the best as farmers, although unfortunately not many of these people went into actual farming. I know of one, there's a gentleman called Christopher Cox, he's been an accomplished farmer, but the most of our people who end up working for the ministry of agriculture, either as extension officers or in the other departments. So the idea was to train people to take on this mantle of getting efficient agricultures, first of all, and agricultural technicians. Okay, great. What's your, going back a bit with you, what got you into that program? I mean, were you from an agricultural background? No, not necessarily so, but within the primary school system there was a agricultural program, and so I developed the interest and love for agriculture. But back then, the opportunity for secondary school was very limited. You only had St. Mary's College, St. Joseph's convent for the girls, and the view for secondary school, but depending on the time of the year you were born, it was not possible to be among the first batch of students going in. So this interest in agriculture, I continued nurturing this, to the extent that when the advertisement went out for students to be trained in agriculture, I grabbed hold of this opportunity and applied and went to do the exam, you know. And successful. And successful. For me, it's amazing, but I remember my mom who was an entrepreneur in her own rights, she saw an opportunity, we're from DeGazon, and she used to do substance farming, and of course that sent me to school. But she used to come to sell to you to work as a union, sell her flutes and her aqua and whatever it is, and coming for her little book, you know, for people to take the credit and stuff like this. So she was familiar with union, and she used to also sell for the cadets too, all right. So I remember there were agricultural exhibitions, and she used to participate in that, she used to mix things like paper oil, she was very good at those condiments and stuff, and she used to get prizes. And for some reason she got to do Mr. College's George, who was the one in charge of the program, and she spoke with him and got me and enrolled me as a student there, and that's how I became a student at that college, and we all met there, you know, and what two years, what two years we had. It's a very memorable, memorable, you'll never forget. I was like 16, 16 years, I can remember, and then your chest nurturing, you know, and then we got that great man, my colleague George, who's my mentor today, who was able to actually, you know, create that base for us, even not only from a technical standpoint, but from you growing up, my dad died when I was nine, so I really did not have a father figure. So in other words, he took that role, you know, I looked up to him, and that shaped me to who I am today, and I remember, you know, the course was, of course, theory and practical. So, can we, can one of you tell us exactly what is happening in the classroom? Okay, let me take on that role. I could recall we had several lectures, and these lectures was at a tertiary level. We did chemistry, we did biology, we did zoology, we did engineering, and you know, science and extension. So it was at a very high level, as I said, a tertiary level, and very, very interesting, very instructive at the time, you know, especially as you mentioned with Mr. Kallis, George, who was the main lecturer, it used to be a mixture of fun and melancholy, you know, you're afraid, you know, at the time and so on. But at the same time it was very enjoyable, and I recall, you know, as you rightly mentioned, you've been a very young person, you've been kind of, you know, kind of a brilliant, you know, under that condition, and it was very, very helpful, and as I said earlier, before we began talking officially, my subject was organic chemistry, I recall that aspect of it, and I enjoyed it very much. Yeah, man. Could you imagine it? It's a group of young boys, very energetic, but the thing is Mr. Jod saw the potential in the boys that were agricultural credits at the time, so he channeled that energy into productive means. Well, we felt because we were young that we were being too restricted and so on, but in hindsight now, it was very good because we could have gone in any direction. But here he channeled us to focus on our work, and some of the work were way beyond our level because we were coming out of the primary school system, and there you were exposed to a high level of chemistry, both organic and inorganic chemistry, zoology, botany, and whatnot, some of these things were new to you, so he says, look, you've got to sit and do my work. Yes, man. You know, there was no joke about that. He wasn't joking. And so we enjoyed it, and we followed through on the discipline and the training and the guidance provided, and I think he too became very proud of the outcome. Yes, definitely. Because the thing about it, I was scared of this gentleman. Honestly, his outlook, you know, his tall and that voice, he had this deep voice, man. And I remember, you know, when, if we were supposed to have our exams, man, he would come and say, hmm, the boat will rock, you ought to stick to six tablets. And let me tell you, and he had that, growing up at that time, you think of, you know, this man is wicked to us, you know, we figured at the time, you know, you're young and we used to call him what kind of names, you know, Gigan, Castro, and the names were going on. But as you know, all of us continued in the agricultural field, and even those who came out of this, they were proud to see the kind of direction they went that they went to, and they did quite well. There was not even a priest out of that. Yes, yes. I will go through the names in a while. What I really, we were well rounded when we left there. I mean, apart from the theory in terms of classroom, we had the chemistry lab, right? So you used to go in there and you used to do your soil testing the whole gametes of this thing. And from there, your practicals on the farm, I mean, you had to go and clean the pig pen. You had to go and get involved in the establishment of research plots, you know, so there were varietal trials and spacing trials, and we had our own plots to ask cadets, and we were evaluated by that, you know, and practical was the key thing. I mean, there was never a dull moment at Union. Yeah, and when you think of the human resource back then, Mr. George was the research officer, the head of research, but he conducted a wide range of experiments using only the cadets. Yes. Early, we were exposed to setting up a demonstration plot or an experimental plot, your guide rules and everything, and then just limit, with regards to the vegetables, the wide range of crops. Yes. Provided quite a lot of what you call tech-technology packages. That's right. Yeah, technology packages, yes. They're not only limited to the vegetables, the root crops. Yeah, the root crops, exactly. All the dash cores, I mean, the tannia, you know, dashin, for example, just a wide range of crops. So we were exposed to this, and not only that, besides the food crops and the vegetables, there was also experiments conducted in forage crops. Yes. Forage grass and forage legumes. Forage grass, man, I remember that of Dr. Luzi. Very well done. Yes, I remember that very clearly. And the other thing, as it comes to mind, I remember the plots were not only at Union, the plots were island-wide. Exactly. I remember, well, I heard about it, about the cotton plots that are up in Dufan, in these places. Yeah. But I remember participating in the plots in La Fagre, in Swazai, you know, where we had peanut plots. I mean, the soil was hard and we had to use some big, dumb sticks. I love them with zampul in my eyes. You understand? Yes. Some time ago, I heard, and there was sort of a lot of press coverage with regards to white potatoes, what we call white potatoes. And then speaking to someone, I said, look, this is not going anywhere. Oh, bless you, too pessimistic. I said, no, it is not pessimism. It's reality. It's reality. Because we, along with Mr. George, carried out all kinds of experiments, varietal trials, fertilizer trials throughout the country. Yes, and also here, Mr. Leos. Throughout the country. And it was only in the higher elevations of Souffre, we were able to get some small results. Exactly. And did something happen with that new thing? The climatic conditions does not favor the growing of this crop at a commercial scale. Right. And moreover, this is the cheapest root crop in the country in the United States. You buy a dollar. Exactly. And these things, where they have been planted, they have machinery for harvesting. So the cost of production is very, very low. You can't compete with the scale. Exactly. No, we tried with garlic. We tried with onions. Exactly. You can grow them, but is it really commercially viable? I mean, do you have a comparative advantage? In 1970, I tried, when I went to work in the Central District, all right? We tried with three farmers, onions. But again, not on a commercial level. It just cannot go. And with you for our first break. You're watching agriculture on the move. Stay tuned, we'll be back soon. Thank you. Chemicals and GMOs are not the solution. Use organic and join. Excessive agrochemical use. Additives and genetically modified foods are harmful to health and the environment. Join the Good Food Revolution. Grow, buy and consume organic. A message from Rye St. Lucia and the Ministry of Sustainable Development with funding from the GEF Small Grants Program, UNDP. Good Food Revolution. Welcome back to the program, Agriculture on the Move. As you probably, if you're tuning in late, with me is Mr. Stephen Best and also Mr. Hilary La Force. Those are honorable men, I should say, in the midst of all of us in St. Lucia who contributed meaningfully to the agriculture sector in so many areas. So we're just revisiting where we came from as young officers, trainees and graduated into extension officers. And I just want to mention, La Force, some of the guys who were there with us, you know? I remember Lenny Chitoli. I remember Jones Beset. Gregory Averell. T-Watt is Augustine, eh? Augustine, yeah. Rigobot, Andrew Rigobot. Yeah. Ronnie Pilgrim. Anthony Filgence. Toby. What is Toby's name? You remember? I can't remember. Then there was Prentice. There was Scholar. Scholar called Matty from Cannery. Tallboy and Blackie from the Denry Valley. And we also had Father St. Rose. The great Father St. Rose. In fact, he was right next to my bed, you know? We had Patrick John. We had Seville. And then, of course, the three of us. There was one who was famous. Ben Fadle. Fadle. Yes, yes, yes. From Barata. Ad-Len. Yes, yes, yes. Ad-Len. Ad-Len. He passed on. He passed, yes, yes, yes. And there was also Ben Bernard. Who went down to become the commissioner of police. Yes, yes, yes. So, I mean, the thing about it, like I said earlier, some of us began in agriculture, but we diverted. Yeah. You know, I mean, watch, you know, St. Rose. Yeah. I mean... Exactly. You know all of us had our names up there. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah. That suspected the most of you. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Exactly. You know, but you know, what I remembered in... Okay, I will ask you all first. What comes to mind in your head at Union Station? In any way, it could be from an academic standpoint. It can be from a social standpoint. What can... While you're thinking, I can remember, you know, because we were living in that long building, which was our long... Exactly. Quarters, yeah. Quarters up there. In fact, your bed was next to mine. Yes, yes, yes. We stayed there for two years. And do you know, every night La Force will give me a different joke, please? For two years! Exactly. I'll give you a different joke. You know, I can never forget, I don't know. This has stayed with La Force. Up to now. Up to now. Where you are. We went to Barbada's Dunnican River. Oh. We went all over. Wherever you go. And La Force is around. Well, you know, it's the life of the party. Yeah, man. And I remember... First you should all remember the Citrus Orchard, which was down where they have the Union Power Station. Exactly. And there's another one that used to be where they have Union Terrace. It's called Union Terrace. Yes, afterwards they moved it from there because when the night came, they put the June Pass and Bank up that side. And next to it though, there was the Manga Orchard too. Some of the Orchard... The Manga Orchard was still there. Still there. Next to the... And I remember we used to get up during the night and go down in the orangeies. Come back to the court. You're quite right. And the interesting thing is I remember going to do my practicals, especially at Propagation Station, where I learned to do my birding and my grafting. And that helped me a lot in extension. I remember when I went into extension, one of the things that Mr. Pemberley said to me, you must always leave your legacy, leave your mark. And I remember doing some top working on the Manga Orchard, up to today it's bearing five varieties of Manga Orchard. So those are the things I remember. But over to you all. Yeah, well, Union... I have this kind of attachment to Union. That was the make of our culture back then. Our cultural exhibitions. Oh yes. Experimental plots, validating varieties and the efficacy of chemicals and so on in terms of pest control, pest and disease control. Almost everything that had to do with agriculture revolved around Union. And we were very pleased to be part of it then because Mr. George was central to it all because most things came to the research department for either analysis, for trials or whatever the case may be. And Mr. George would have his group of cadets, our cultural cadets, our trainees, and he would expose us to it. So these are things that stay with you and you know the discipline, the training, the focus. Work ethics. Oh yes, yes. The whole question of doing quality work and to deliver... Timeliness. Yes, timeliness. And the point is with regards to Mr. George, the training provided, he would ask you to write a report for him and you may decide to go ahead and explain what transpired and here is the thing. But then he would analyze it and says you haven't said anything to me. That's all he would just say to you have not said anything to me. Here is your report. Go back. Now you're wondering what he means by this. And you go back and read the thing and you'll see it's just blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But it was not analytical, it was not, you know... Structured. It was not properly structured and it was this kind of training provided you so you had to learn those things under the guidance of someone like Mr. George back then. Of course we will not forget Mr. Matthews. Oh, that's another one I guess. And Laurie O'Giz and Coco Charles, you know, all of those gentlemen they played a pivotal role in nurturing and developing agricultural officers back then. Yeah, actually I rightly said this place, you were well-rounded. In fact, if you recall, every aspect of agriculture was out there. Yes. You recall that in those days, the ministry had its own equipment pool. Mm-hmm. There were tractors. Yeah. Because I remember some of these guys who were tractor operators. People like, like, like, like, Farnese, you remember the serious kindleman, Farnese was an operator. There was a guy called Albert was an operator. Right. And there was, there were two guys who had the same name. Strangely, I remember the names right now. They were operators. And there were also wheel tractors because I myself learned how to operate a wheel tractor. That's where we... That's when you lived there, you had to learn. I learned to drive up there on the old Land Rovers. Land Rovers. Land Rovers. This is how I learned to drive myself. Yeah. So there was every aspect of agriculture in the moment, that place. Mm-hmm. There was a cocoa. There was cocoa out there at Coco Center, Coco Fields. Mm-hmm. But I wanted to go to Coco and record his little photos. It was just fun to go out there and run up and down the streets. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. And you stayed there. Exactly. Then you also had a livestock. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. So you have to put the bridge in. Yes. So when you left Union, we all left Union, I'm sure all of us went into extension. Exactly. All right? Yes. Because I remember when I left Union I was sent to work in the Central District. There's not regions at the time. Yes. Yes. There were five of them. Exactly. The North, Central, South, South, Western, Eastern. Yes. Yes. I remember going to Central District, which was... In fact, Coco Chard, not Coco Williams. Mm-hmm. He was the Chief Extension of the time. Yes. You know, young man, you were going into a dance hall. So I was like, what's he talking about? But an empty house. No electricity. No furniture. Yeah. No furniture. No pipe on water. On your tongue. I can never forget that. Got to bring my little bed, my little stove, you know, whatever, you know. And then, no electricity in that place. Mm-hmm. And we had to spend the weekends there because that's it. You're an extension officer. You are. Mm-hmm. You know. That training I got from Union got me well rounded there. I was prepared for that. Exactly. No transportation. I had to walk. Mm-hmm. To do my visits to the farmers and stuff like that. Mm-hmm. And that's why I'm proud to see that the work I did in Ravin Poisson, Bexon, it still stands today because I decided there was an orchard on the Badlil. And I wanted to, because of the environmental conditions of the area, I wanted to have had an orchard going all the way down to Bexon. Right. And I had to speak to the farmers but the joke was I could not speak Quayol. Mm-hmm. Well, let me tell you I had a devil of a time. Yeah. But however, those farmers who were able to buy one or two plants, after Hurricane Arlene, when the bananas went down and the citrus trees just went this way and came back up. Mm-hmm. That's a thing before they went back into bananas and they regretted not planting more. Mm-hmm. That's why you, I'm telling you, that's my work and that's what I was able to do. Mm-hmm. Of course, in my situation my first job was to get into the extension aspect of the ministry. Of course, I went to the Eastern District. I called to the municipality they held the extension Mr. Bo Bremen. Mr. Bo Bremen. Eastern District. Okay. There I met my friend Daisy Andrew Daisy Mm-hmm. and we lived together in that house. It was a kind of carbonized garden. But those three of them best had one. Yes. I had one and the other one Yes. Yes. Yes. And I recall working for both of these farms in these areas out there and part of that area also included the estate of the late Sir John Compton. Right. Right. And this is one of the areas that you have to ensure that you provide the kind of assistance that is required. And there's so much to remember. I mean we don't have enough time to talk about the extension a bit. The assistance and dependency and reliability to your work up to now there are people who remember me like I forget them. Yeah. Me too. Children of their parents who remember them. Do you remember them? Yes. They come to me all the time. Yes. And I say who are you? Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. And they were children at the time when I went out there. Yeah. So I say well you haven't changed all those things. Some of it of course I must tell you on hand side you say boy you shouldn't have done that because I recall in those days that was a idiot in the banana industry. And we used to have people to go up in the forest up there knocked down the trees and we saw the result of it. It was the best thing. Well fortunately I didn't have this encounter. Because I was sent to the Mabia Valley which is also part of the central area was high in the Mabia Valley. Yeah. Exactly. And unfortunately I couldn't get the farmers to keep the cocoa. But bananas were spring gold was it prime people chopped everything. The chopped cocoa you know the bananas. And now we are embarking on reactivating the cocoa fields. But there was something I keep going back to Khalik George Mr. George I was sent to Mabia Valley. New. And within two weeks I've been in that area living there and you've got as Sidney said a while ago that boy that's your place you know weekend and everything you ought to be there. Here was Mr. George he says how are you doing best? How are you adjusting to your new environment? I said very good. He said yeah that is fine because you know you left Union with a fair degree of confidence. Because when you advise him the farmers listen to you. Yeah that is good. So you speak both from the theoretical as well as the practical aspect of it here. I was about to end because just a minute and a half left I just want to say to my journey took me to Stephen Matthew and this man again when I came back from Mekiaf I was sent to be manager of application station in Boseju I was even the youngest senior assistant in extension to go from Abdul you know the best of myself to do agriculture management farm management and I came back to take over the management of Union station and then he gave me to the lecture the cadets at Union for four years I did that to the farm management so I'm very pleased and proud to the product I became and I'm still happy I am still doing what I can for my country so I think we have reached the end I don't want to ask you all for your final words because I don't think we have much time so I just want to say thank you Mr. Bess for being here and La Force thank you very much I think we would like to do a part two definitely so thank you viewers for viewing the program today our culture and the move with a difference I wanted to say hello to my son because he gave me a show that he must watch on television and watch it I'll continue to wear the others that you sent me and the young people out there I hope what we said today is a seed seed for you because you can do so much for your country thank you again for viewing I'm Philip Sidney and remember our culture is our business and eat fresh St. Lucia's best goodbye and remember our culture and the move remember our culture and the move remember