 Farmers in Region 8 are currently facing a number of challenges in the agriculture sector, including the impact of rising input costs and farm labour, as well as pre-de-alasni concerns. In a discussion with the Farmers' Parliamentary Representative for Castries South East, Honourable Joachim Henry, expressed the need for a farmer's cooperative in the region to address some of the concerns currently plaguing the farmers. He also emphasised the importance of ensuring the success of the agriculture sector to pique the interest of young people. When you speak of the technology, when you speak of the farmers' cooperative, it is the farmers who can really usher in a mode of farming that would allow for them to engage young people. And this is why I'm promoting and supporting the Farmers' Cooperative. If the Farmers' Cooperative, if the farmers, the current farmers, can demonstrate success, it will encourage the young people to participate. And how do you get the farmers to realise success? It's through the cooperative, Farmers' Cooperative, where they can take care of the small issues and that will provide a platform or usher in a culture so that young people like to participate in ventures where they believe they can be successful. So it's important that in Castries South East, our farmers or the farming practices encourage the young people by demonstrating success at the marketing level, at the technological level, you know, all of the areas that are of concern to the current crop of farmers. If it is not addressed, we will not find young people venturing into farming. Minister with responsibility for agriculture, Honourable Alfred Prosper, noting that the issues being highlighted by the farmers are felt globally, particularly with the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic also lamented the importance of unity amongst farmers in the sector. This is one area I must say is that it's very critical to our farmers now, forming cooperatives where we bring all our farmers together, especially now. The high cost of farm inputs, farmers can come together and they can now order or import the farm materials, the fertilizers and so on as a cooperative rather than individual farmers are doing it and it's really, really causing a problem in the sector. They can also benefit from getting resources from various agencies, maybe instead of the pack houses to give for farmer training, for farmer pension, a number of areas that can benefit the farmer as a result of the cooperatives. So this is one of the areas I really stressed upon in terms of encouraging farmers to form cooperatives because that is one way of addressing the whole food security issue, the high cost of inputs. Minister Prosper here filmed the Ministry of Agriculture's commitment to improving the food security and livelihoods of St. Lucian's as he continues to strategize on the best solution to the sector's current problems. From the communications unit of the Ministry of Agriculture, I am Anicia Antoine reporting.