 On Tuesday, 28 September, the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries, Food Security and Rural Development, Hon. Alfred Prosper said that the fisheries sector is one which remains on his priority list. Hon. Alfred, a former chief forestry officer, said, Fisheries plays an essential role in providing food and livelihood for thousands. Minister Prosper is currently exploring compensational and beneficial avenues for fishers. The fishing exercise is a very risky business. Sometimes, most times where we hear our fishers go out at sea, they are lost at sea, their engines, their boats sink because of bad weather conditions. But there is nothing to compensate, very little to compensate in terms of loss of life and so on. And I'm really concerned about some form of insurance for our officials. You know, when our life is lost at sea, the family members can benefit. When a fisherman decides that at age 65 or 60, I cannot afford to continue going to sea, there should be some form of health insurance, insurance coverage for them, just like the NIC will do to the regular workers. The minister added that the removal of $1.50 excise tax on fishers is only the beginning of future plans to alleviate some of the challenges confronting fishers. Insurance coverage is one of the things, one of the areas that I'm giving high priority in terms of how we assist our fishermen. The government of St. Lucia in its manifesto indicated that the $1.50 excise fuel tax will be removed. So that will be an ease for our fishermen because that will be able to give them some latitude in terms of benefitting by reducing or removing the $1.50 tax on gas or fuel for the fishermen. But it's really a very, very, very important sector, but it's also a sector with lots of challenges and it's one of the sectors that I will be giving a lot of attention in terms of attempting to address most, if not all, of the challenges that the government faces. Reporting from the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries, Food Security and Rural Development, I am Miguel Morissette.