 Hello again viewers and welcome to the program, Agriculture on the Move. I am Philip Sidney, your host. Today our topic is the discussion with our Honorable Minister, with the response of our agriculture, the Honorable First Prospect. And we are looking at various activities that are happening in the ministry, the successes and ongoing activities as it relates to the minister of agriculture, fisheries, rural development. Welcome to the program sir. Thank you very much as usual, it's always a pleasure. Thank you. Okay, Mr. Minister of Storm Breaks gave us a beating, gave the farmers a licking a few months ago. And the banana industry took some blows, the plantain, livestock, fisheries. We were supposed to give some relief to the farmers and the fishers, where we are with this? Yes, it's suddenly we had a hurricane, tropical storm break that impacted the entire agricultural sector. And unfortunately 75% of our banana and plantain subsectors were devastated. And obviously you would understand the impact negatively it would have on our farmers. Our farmers have been exporting to the region, our farmers have been selling locally bananas and plantain and the impact of the storm would have been a major setback to them. And our government realizing that was able to get $2.4 million to assist the farmers. Now I want to stick up in there to see to the farmers, we are not compensating them for loss or damage. What we are providing is an assistance, some level of assistance, what you just mentioned relief, to just help them get back into production. Because we know when you have a plantation of bananas or plantain and you see all your stems on the ground, especially those that you would have been harvesting a few weeks from the storm, that would definitely impact you. And obviously in order for you to get back and to, you know, convince your production, you would have to go in there and you would have to replant, you would have to uproot and do what is necessary. And we know at the time when that happened the farmers would be struggling to get the financial resources to do so. So what the government did was to provide some relief, some assistance to enable our farmers to get back to where they were. And I'm very happy that they've been taking advantage of the opportunity. We have paid up to 90% of the farmers in terms of compensation for bananas and plantain. And we have also done the same for vegetable farmers. We have also compensated almost 100% of farmers who were affected by the infrastructure damage, greenhouse damage, livestock damage. The only sector that we are yet to begin compensating are the CMOS farmers who we know lost a lot of the CMOS material, but we are still awaiting some NIC numbers that we need to put in the system for us to begin compensating the CMOS farmers. I'm very happy to see some of the plantations have been showing signs of rapid recovery. And in some cases we have seen a lot of bunches coming out from planting and banana and plantations. This augurs well for us because in recent weeks there has been a cry about a situation with lack of food. When you go to the supermarket shelves you don't see plantain, you don't see bananas. But what I want to say is that we still have lots of dashing available. So when I say we are in a food crisis, I'm not certain that we are suffering a food crisis in St. Lucia. Although we had a lot of our mangoes and golden apples, in some cases breadfruits and avocados, but we still have a lot around. And so I just want to remind our citizens that this is not the first time we have been in a situation like that. During a weekend, else in 2021, we had the same situation because once you do not have bananas and plantain, there will definitely be a gap. But I'm certainly sure by the end of October, early November, we should be back to normal with plantain and bananas and other crops that we would have not had as a result of the storm. And I'm just hoping that our people can be a little more patient because it was caused by a natural disaster. And a natural disaster, we have no control over. But what I want to do is to go back to the subsidy. So I'm happy that the farmers are receiving the subsidy. And in the same vein, we've provided a 30% subsidy in the sum of $400,000. That is in addition to the $2.4 million to allow farmers to get fertilizer at a much lower cost. And I remember saying recently that we are not producing or giving you the fertilizer free, but we are reducing the cost for you to be able to give you the buying power to be able to get as many as possible. And we have the 250 kg bags of fertilizer that was going for 170 they're about, they can get it for $109. The small 25 kg bags that was going for about 70, they are going for 48. And that is in addition to two liters of nematocytes that we are giving to farmers, both plantain and banana farmers, to be able to take care of the disease and to ensure that the root system remains healthy. So the absorption of the fertilizers can have effect and can result in high yield and production. So we are going further. We've received 3,975 bags of fertilizer from the government of Morocco. And let me take time on behalf of the government and people of St. Lucia to thank the people of the government and people of Morocco for this annual donation of fertilizer. These fertilizer bags will be given free of charge to our banana farmers. So I'm happy that our government have been able to reach out. And I really wish we could have done a lot more. But we have been able to provide that level of assistance to farmers. And I just want the farmers to take advantage of it. Because it is critical that our farmers remain in the sector. It is important for us to continue to increase our food production, grow what we eat and eat what we grow. And if we do not give the farmers the support, it means that we will have a food crisis that will be on our hands and we will not be able to live well as a country, as a populace, who must eat on a day-to-day basis. But in addition, I want to mention the importance of agricultural insurance. You know, there is always this heavy dependency on the government to compensate. But of the view that if you have an agricultural insurance in place and government can assist with the premium, then whenever there is a natural disaster that impacts the sector, then the government responsibility will be... We've done what we've done in terms of the premium, let the insurance compensate the farmers. And you recall we had wind crop during the other days. And wind crop was responsible for compensating the farmers. And the wind crop has collapsed or collapsed many years ago. And we do not have anything in terms of compensation for our farmers, fishers and other persons in the agricultural sector, especially when they are in a crisis situation, like what they experience in June through tropical storm breath. So it's a serious situation, but I'm just happy to see that a lot of the farmers have taken advantage of the assistance that has been afforded to them. And we hope to see the results of that in the next few weeks, months. And this is important, because this is very important information. Storm breath affected figs, bananas and other fruits. Do we have to continue this? What assistance do we have by this framework? Well, I want to say that we all know that the storm that happened in Genland was affected by a lot of farmers, especially those who had figs and bananas. And we also know that a lot of people were affected, people who had greenhouses, people who had cows, people who had animals, people who had animals, and people who had animals, because we know that the weather was bad, bad, and it affected a lot of people. The government is here to support the situation of these farmers. We have to immediately buy the farmers 2.4 million, I'm not going to lie to you, assistance to buy the farmers this poor. And we want to help the government buy the money to pay for the damage. Because the government is giving money to pay for each fig plant that has been planted, but we don't know if it's going to help us to buy the plants, to buy the fig plants, to pay for the damage. And it's not going to be important for the entire system, because let it be done, I'm a farmer myself, and I don't know if it's going to help us with that. We have to buy figs, bananas and other fruits, because it's important to buy the plants, to grow them because of the wind, the trees, the wind, we have to buy the fruits to live, and that's what the government is doing. And we also need to buy an assistance for the farmers, and we have to make an FTO. The FTO is $400,000 in the government, and it's going to pay for the waste, and it's going to pay for the waste, it's not going to help us, it's not going to help the figs. And we have to buy the plants, but also the government is going to buy a donation, a donation for this government, for farmers, $3925, $425, it's going to buy the farmers free of charge. We have to pay for that. We have to buy the industry, we have to buy the agricultural sector, because we don't want to let the farmers buy the fruits, and if the farmers don't buy the fruits, it's going to be difficult for them to grow the fruits, and even if they don't grow the fruits, because they suffer, so we have to buy the fruits, because we have to buy the fruits, and we have to get the advantage of that. We have to go to the drivers, we have to buy the figs, we have to buy the fruits, we have to sell them, and we have to continue production, and we have to continue for the advantage of the market. We have to buy the figs, and we have to buy the figs, and for us, it's going to be difficult. So we have to go to the market, we have to buy the figs, but even if the situation is not good, because we have to buy the fruits, for the first time, we have to buy the fruits, because we suffer for the next three months, but we hope that by the end of October, we will be able to buy all the fruits and sell them to the market shelves. There's a point that is very important, and that's pretty a lesson now. And I heard something that's very frightening, Mr. Minister. Some of the farmers are very upset with what's happening, and of course, the bananas is green gold now, but fellas are still in the bananas, and I heard they're putting pins in the bananas. That is dangerous, you know. That tells you, you know, I heard so recently, you know, and it's happening, I was told. It's a sad situation, and the British National Unit is very critical to this agricultural sector, but with 14 offices only, it is never or it will never be sufficient to secure the agricultural sector in terms of the farmers and produce. I believe what is important for us to do is, whilst we are focusing on pre-year last year as a team of persons in the ministry, we need to establish what we call watch farm or watch groups. So you have, on a weekend, let's say, MAC, you have a watch group, if it comprises maybe 20 farmers in the area, those farmers would organize a system of monitoring and observing, and they may have a system where they do it, maybe three farmers or four farmers on a weekend in the morning by a certain time in the evening, and they can work closer with the pre-year last year unit. But let's imagine if the pre-year last year there's 14 people, one in Denmark, one in Mexico, one in Puali, one in... And then the rest of the country will never... Just like the police force... It's difficult, it's difficult. You must work together with the communities, the farmers groups, to bring that joint effort together so we can strategize more in terms of this. Yes, very important. It's a major problem. Major problem, yes. Anyway, we'll do it for a break. You're watching Agriculture in the Move. Stay tuned, we'll be back soon. The Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries, Food Security and Rural Development is placing heavy emphasis on the concept of food security. It's our prosperity, our future. The Farmer Incentives Program of the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries, Food Security and Rural Development is aimed at reducing the cost of production and promoting food security and accessibility. All farmers, fishers and agro processors who've registered and own a farmer's registration card qualify. These incentives include the percentage reduction of excise tax and import duties for agricultural and fisheries production inputs which are imported. These include approved agricultural products for an approved agricultural project, for example vehicles, fishing vessels, animals, animal feed, planting materials and other farm inputs. Farmers can apply by completing the application form and submitting with all relevant documents attached. For further information, contact the Deputy Director of Agricultural Services at 468-4125. Welcome back to the program, Agriculture on the Move. Of course, if you're tuning in now with me, my guest, the honorable Alfred Prospe, the Minister with Responsibility for Agriculture. Mr. Minister, I know you traveled recently and there was an OECS meeting that was held and looked at agriculture strategy. Tell us about this. This meeting is called the OECS Council of Ministers of Agriculture in the OECS. Well, it's OECS Council of Ministers of Agriculture. So, it's really all the Ministers of Agriculture in the OECS coming together to discuss the whole issue of agriculture in the OECS, food production, food security, etc., etc. And this OECS Council of Ministers is being guided by what we call a strategy called the Food and Agricultural Systems Transformation Strategy. This strategy was developed by the OECS and the OECS countries to look at what we call seven pillars. I can't remember all the pillars, but I remember clearly that we have agricultural insurance, private sector engagement, climate smart agriculture, and some other areas that we are focusing on to address the whole issue of food production in the OECS. And we believe that it is time that the region, the OECS must come together on the one umbrella as against operating in silo. So, in recent, in the last few months, we have had three meetings, one in Green Bay, and two in St. Vincent. And it was really to discuss the whole issue of the fast strategy and how we can implement it to address those problems. We are off the view that by 2050, I'm not sure if I'll still be alive, there may be a global food crisis. And we think that this is an opportunity and time for the region to come together and work towards implementation of that strategy. One of the highlights of the meeting that I attended in St. Vincent is the whole regional cooperation that is needed among all players to be able to deal with all the issues confronting the sector. An example, when we had bananas, we had a marketing entity that was responsible for marketing all our bananas. The responsibility of the farmers was to ensure that you establish your plantations, get your right quality, and that entity was responsible for export to the U.K. But now we do not have any entity that is doing that for bananas, nor for any of the other crops that have been produced. And we think it is important that we engage the private sector to see how we can get an entity. For example, I will say that entity is responsible for CMOS exports. So our farmers now went to CMOS production and will know that my role is to get the CMOS, get it at the quality and standard, etc. And that entity will do everything that is necessary to take it to the market and get me my money. So we were discussing all of that and looking at how this can work in the region. And not just for bananas, not just for CMOS, but for livestock, for other crops like cassava, for other crops like pineapple, soursop, breadfruit, cuckoo. That was a discussion that we were having, and we thought it was necessary for us to establish an entity around marketing our produce in the OECS and in the region. So this strategy, first strategy, what we have done to ensure that we increase our implementation rate, we have established an entity in St. Vincent called the Food and Nutrition Security Center. And what that center will do is to look at this strategy and quoting it, the implementation of the activities in the strategy. So St. Lucia had to identify a point person just like Grenada, Dominique, St. Kitt's and Levi's and Tigger where that point person will be responsible for implementation at the local level and feeding that information to the Food and Nutrition Security Center in St. Vincent. So we've been meeting regularly, we have another meeting coming up I think in in Bahamas in the next two weeks to really continue that discussion. And it's the first time since I became a minister we've seen the OECS Minister of Agriculture coming together on a regular basis and discussing the issues of food production, food insecurity in the region. Is that timeline to that? Well, this strategy surprisingly has been in existence for almost 10 years but very little has been achieved and we as ministers we believe we have the onus isn't us to be able to report to our farmers to our ministries to our people in terms of our role when we go out and represent our people and we were very concerned that very little was happening and we were feeling guilty that we were going to those meetings but very little very little achievement very slow implementation and I want to take time to say thank you to the OECS Director General for their support in helping push and implement this strategy. We are hoping that in the next few weeks we can engage our cabinet colleagues and to educate and sensitize them on this strategy and its rules and importance and so that in the future CARICOM will have this strategy as one of the agenda items on the table to be able to push and to be able to get the funding to ensure that we do what we need to do but our region needs to come together on the one umbrella to be able to achieve what we as a region needs to do in terms of food security. One final thing on the strategy is that what we've seen is that each country has its strengths and weaknesses for example, St. Lucia is the only country that is still into banana production and CMOS Dominica is well known for its root crops St. Vincent livestock and the cannabis so we are saying it is important for us to be able to work each other and each other support each other so that we can really move the agricultural sector in those in the region to a better place and to be able to address all our food import bill and everything to do with the whole management and efficiency of the sector to be able to meet our food As opposed to Expo St. Lucia is in the sense of that Expo St. Lucia is critical and Ms. Sunita Daniel in our last meeting in St. Vincent, she made a presentation that really sensitize all the ministerial agriculture there in terms of the availability of markets for exports of our produce in the region outside of the region sorry and a lot of the countries where they were excited because they were not even aware that a lot of those markets were available so what we have to do is to create a platform and for those persons who may not know that we are Renault has been doing very well in St. Vincent where he purchased all the produce from the farmers and within a few minutes after you sell your produce to him you get the money you get your money right away but in St. Lucia a lot of our farmers are suffering because they have to wait weeks and months to get the money I wish we'd be able to have something that happened in St. Lucia but I know there will be implications because you have the market in board and other entities who are already buying from the farmers I'm not sure but this is going on well in St. Vincent other countries are looking at that Dominica is currently engaging the authorities in Haiti to see how they can import laborers into Dominica because farm labor is becoming a major problem not just in St. Lucia but in the region and some of those countries are already looking at the possibility of bringing workers into the countries to work on the farms great okay let's let's change it a bit uh our fishers we had an establishment of the Blue Ocean Lucian Blue Ocean that were assisting buying farmers fish that is had some issues where are we to deal with this yes and it's um a situation that worries me quite a bit but we've made some progress the cabinet uh a memo memo was presented to the cabinet in terms of where do we go with Lucian Blue Ocean and um under the lease agreement we had the denry facility that is the denry fishing facility the fish and facility and the San Susie facility so yeah there were three facilities in that lease agreement we've taken the decision to remove denry remove you fought from the agreement and so Lucian Blue only stands with the San Susie facility we saw the we also understood the challenges financial challenges that the facility was going through and the government made a request to the national economic fund for 1.5 million dollar loan for the facility to continue operational operating and as a result I know we've done work to the tune of about 400,000 dollars to upgrade the electricals at the facility there was an outstanding amount owed to fishers close to 100,000 dollars that has been paid and there was also some outstanding legislative bills that which some payments have been made I am hoping that the rest of the funds will be able to assist in being able to buy open the facility get the ice motion and the other equipment they're running and working and for the facility to be open to the fishers it hurts to see every day the fishers have to go out there on the roads to sell fish simply because they don't have a facility to sell and we'll never forget the facility was established for the fishers so sometimes when you go around you hearing people saying that why should government be giving money to reopen the facility but we must remember the bigger picture our fishers our fishers go out there and sometimes they get back to the port very late and it is not a good thing to see that in the early morning next day or the same night they have to be on the road selling the fish so if the facilities recommission re-open our fishers will be more comfortable going out then coming back anytime because they know the fish marketing corporation will buy great fish quickly you have two more minutes left Coco we are well Coco and every time I mention Coco it brings the whole question of diversification into my head because we have been heavily dependent on bananas and we seem to think bananas on its own address all the problems in the sector and in the country I believe there is a need for us to diversify and just recently with the experience with tropical storm bread the bananas went down to a low 75 percent but if we had the Coco we would still continue to benefit our farmers we would still be able to harvest what is significant about this Coco project is that we have a market available to us in the UK and we cannot meet the demand Coco fish is a high price but we do not have the demand and I believe our soils we have enough land space to increase our Coco production and to ensure our farmers continue to earn a livelihood from Coco so I was very happy that the government which I am part of up over 1.4 million EC dollars to expand the Coco sub sector I am hoping that more farmers will go into Coco we are hoping that the farmers who already have Coco plantations will be able to go in there and prune and do the necessary practices to boost yield and production and we are making available about 1 million Coco seedlings to make available to farmers including other assistance like provisional rat baits and assistance to be able to fertilize I am hoping that we can see a massive change in the Coco sector that will at the end of the day benefit us I know on a whole food day we are going to have a Coco festival and I am hoping to see quite a bit being made from our Coco there is tremendous opportunity possibilities for enhancing and upgrading and expanding our agro processing sub sector through Coco and other products and commodities we have in San Misha so I am very happy and I am hoping that we can see a massive revamp of the whole Coco sector in San Misha Mr Minister I want to thank you for being here because we have come to the end of the program and I wish you will continue to do what you are doing to ensure that the farmers get what is due to them especially in the relief and of course the Coco program is coming on stream and so I would thank you for being here you have been watching Agriculture on the Move I want to thank you again for viewing the program and of course just to tell you our Coco festival it will be on the 15th of October in Sofray you will hear more about it in the coming weeks so that be prepared it is going to be a massive expo for St. Lucia Coco is a very good product I mean there are a lot of people that are making a livelihood in Coco thank you again for viewing I am Philip Sidney saying goodbye and I will see you again thank you sir