 The CMOS Vesta held under the theme, leave no one behind, better production, better nutrition and a better environment for all, aimed to change public practices and habits toward consuming more locally grown crops, including CMOS, by showcasing a diverse range of value added CMOS commodities. Over 20 CMOS processors, farmers and schools displayed products such as CMOS powders, ice pops, soaps and cakes at the event, which was held in honor of World Food Day on Sunday, October 16th, 2022 in Fodor, Dennering. What's most started pretty much from, wow, our mom passed away, my brother and myself and it's a family-grown business, so it's my girlfriend, myself, my brother and our mom passed away with chronic diabetes about three years ago. Now in doing this product, we did it for leisurely purposes, just to enjoy CMOS and we found that she benefited in such a way where it kept her lively, it gave her more energy and her passing made us aware that we wanted to inject more homes and families with such a benefit from the CMOS itself, having carried so much minerals and vitamins within itself. So we created our CMOS to inspire homes, to inspire our family, our friends, based upon their diets, their recommendations, their lifestyle, everything to do with regards to how they live their daily life and we came up with the concepts to just inspire more, just to be something different, but create it on a premium level rather than just CMOS. So hence where we come up with over, I think we have got like over 70 flavors now in CMOS, and we've got quite a few, but everything is definitely gained or aimed at keeping you healthier, keeping you more energized, and just to taste better, moving in the next five years, hopefully we could be around to serve our public people. This should be good competition for all of us. We should be inspired by each other's progress, by each other's efforts and work with that, and help each other in some way, because if I could see someone else who may need to help refining their product, I'll be more happy than to get them a little help and assistance for myself, but this is just to help our people know what's available, what we can do locally that we could bring in through the products that we find around ourselves, right around our place. So far their awareness, I don't know for others, but for us for the time we got here about eight nine, we've not stopped selling. Our customers knows for the last five years, we've been doing such a great thing in regards to tailoring products for their needs, for their diets, for their lifestyle, and they learned to trust us over some time, and so far the people here, they've shown us love, they've shown us trust, and what else better than trust? We build a family through our homes, and extend it through outside to your homes. SmartSally, the business is SmartSally's Ocean Gardens. We are based in Kakao View Fort, and we've been in operation for about two years now. Essentially we do the dried sea moss in its golden form, we have the powders, we also have some muffins that we came out with recently, it's got the bananas, raisins, everything, and our newest one, which is the cocoa mix, well it's got chocolate, our local cocoa actually, and all you do is you add your water, it has the spices, it has milk, it has everything already, we have the other flavours like the turmeric, ginger, moringa, all of them, and we also have the purple powder, which is said to be even more nutritious than those flavours as well. So yeah, so that's essentially us, we also have the infused scrubs, so face and body, so in the form of lavender and also cinnamon. My family has been in sea moss for like 30 years now, so recently we decided, it's time to make a legacy for ourselves right, so we branched out and we're now doing our own thing, and we figured you know the powder sea moss is becoming something so important nowadays because everybody has a busy schedule, you want to get this and get on the run, so you know we figured like that's the best option, so we've been trying to enhance that and continue to improve as time goes by. Especially for the chocolate mix because you have your cocoa tea right there, you just put your spoons in your water and that's it and you're ready to consume, so people are very receptive to it, so it's easier, it's making everything more convenient, so of course people will gravitate towards that. Well it's a fun experience to learn about how much sea moss can impact us, what it's used for, I didn't know there was a variety of stuff you could do with it, I never liked it, this event made me come out of my bubble and try new stuff, and I'm camera shy, and now it's like getting me to raise my confidence and be more out there, it was mainly sweet dishes, we had for example banana bread with sea moss which I made, so a lot quickly, we did sea moss tarts, we had cheesecake, we had chocolate bars, it's vegan, and we had cookies as well, everything included sea moss, it was basically a normal recipe and you just include the sea moss in it. I think it's very important to celebrate willful day because food in itself is a very important commodity, I mean the human body on normal circumstances eats about three times a day and that's an important part of our daily lives, so it is worthy of the attention given to it to ensure that the public is aware of food security, the agencies responsible and stakeholders responsible are aware of it and they can all work together to the good of national food security and food nutrition. Well at the moment Cardi has no current projects, but what we're really doing right now, we're looking at the scientific end of the sea moss, we have left the agro processing and value chain development to the entrepreneurs, but we are looking at the identification of different types of sea moss, characterization of it in terms of how can we differentiate one from the other, and because members of the public we realize are not familiar how to separate or how to identify or differentiate between a sea moss and a seaweed, which we have to demonstrate that they're for them here in this setting. However, there is some ongoing discussion in looking at the the nutritive and health safety component of the sea moss, which is something that the Cardi St. Lucia is looking at, but they ask some running discussions or shall I say reported issues that that may have to be looked into, so Cardi at the moment is more looking at scientific end and we're hoping to look into or investigate some of the reports about some of the health safety issues surrounding sea moss production and sea moss processing. Very excellent products, and I was happy to see the schools there, which speaks to succession planning and youth in agriculture, because the youth are the next generation of the communities and we have to have them participate in what we're doing. So I was happy to see the secondary schools there, I think I saw the Cassis Community Secondary School as the, I think I also saw the Corum Secondary School, which is good to see that. I saw some youth groups, I saw Helen Daughters, who speaks to social inclusiveness. So I was very happy to see that there's a wide procession of inclusivity in this festival of yester. OK, the SNLDB, as you know, is an institution which is owned by the government of St. Lucia. And this event here today is sponsored or is organized by the Ministry of Agriculture. We were approached by the Ministry to participate in this event as a sponsor, and we thought, hey, why not? I mean, the sea moss industry is beginning to take root. We know there are a number of farmers who are seeking to export sea moss, and so we thought it was an opportunity to come here today to provide some support to this sector. But more than that, we are here because this initial development bank has a lot to offer the solution to the public, the agricultural sector, the sea moss, you know, farmers and solutions generally. So we thought, you know, here is an opportunity for us to give some visibility to the SNLDB. We, under the climate financing facility which we have, which we call the CAF, we provide financing for farmers if they want to go into greenhouse production. We would finance the greenhouses and all the infrastructure that is required for that. We would fund the seeds. We know there are some heat resistant seeds and crops and so on. So we fund this also. We do soil stabilization. We do drainage. We assist in the export of produce. So generally any event, any activity related to agriculture, whether it be the whole question of rainwater harvesting to feed the irrigation systems, the bank would be interested in projects of this nature. Well, with respect to the sea moss farmers, it is relatively new to us. We are still learning the ropes as it relates to the whole question of how sea moss is cultivated and prepared. But it's a sector we will be open to because of the fact that it has the opportunity to generate foreign exchange for the SNLDB. We know the country relies on tourism heavily, but there is need for diversification. And so we would go all out to assist the farmers. There may be occasions when they need to perhaps construct drying facilities. I have driven around and see the farmers having the sea moss exposed on the ground, on plastics and so on. And this may not be good for the quality of the sea moss. And so we would want to encourage them to utilize perhaps the dryers that are more sophisticated because we know the international market is very sensitive. And so we can offer financing in these areas. The whole question of the cultivation of the sea moss, whatever implements they require to do that, we can provide funding in that area. When I walked around also some of the persons here, I know they have bottled, you know, some of the produce and they've taken a marker and just wrote what is in there. We can assist them in getting proper levels, even the whole labeling machines and so on. So there is a wide array of opportunities that are available to them if they come to the SNLDB. Yeah, the Jeff Stubbins Coast project area is from Dennery into Laverie. And one of the objectives of the project is to assist people with their livelihoods, so from sea moss farmers to agro processors, to utilize the resources of the ecosystems and for the livelihoods. So sea moss is fishing prominently today. And along the south of these coasts, there are many areas in Kuala, I mean, if you thought in Laverie where there are many sea moss farms. So we were asked to come in to show our support for the activity today. And to basically explain to people the activities of the surface coast project, you know, to the patrons at this afternoon. Well, one of the things that we can do is to test the sea moss number one. Because if they export the sea moss, it has to be tested. So what we're hoping is that through our lab at the Union, well, I mean, I mentioned about the Clutcher's lab. In Union, they can begin to test the sea moss for the farmers. Secondly, in terms of the production of the sea moss, there are good practices that, you know, need to be followed. And the project can assist in, you know, training our sea moss farmers building capacity within the sector for the production. And thirdly, in terms of livelihoods as well, we can train people to actually process the sea moss so that they can be able to produce the different products that you have from sea moss to other drinks. I heard there's gummy bears, you have ice cream, cheesecake, you know, and the list goes on. Definitely, it is an area that we can use to protect our food security. By getting our farmers to produce more of the sea moss, getting more people involved, and meeting the standards that are required for exports, as well as for selling products locally in Senusia, we can train our sea moss farmers, get them to become involved in the processing, and therefore, you know, look towards, you know, securing our food security in Senusia. The Seamos Fiesta also saw the official launch of the Ministry of Agriculture's very own Seamos catalogue, which included sea moss infused recipes, as well as a compilation of sea moss processors and their products. The use of sea moss as an alternative for thickener and emulsifier is growing in popularity in Senusia and around the world because it is naturally abundant in nutrients like vitamin K, iron, iodine, magnesium, and calcium. I'm very happy to be here. I never realized we had so many byproducts of sea moss, you know, I mean, I sampled so many products and there are other products like soaps and creams and so on. I think this is a wonderful opportunity for St. Lucian's to see what can be done. I mean, the creativity, the oils and the the rubs and the creams and so on speaks to the ability of St. Lucian's to be entrepreneurs, but also to use a local product and multiply its benefits. So I'm very pleased with what I've seen here today. Well, clearly St. Lucian's used so many products and most of these products are imported and we have sea moss with minerals and lots of nutrition benefits for us as human beings, as St. Lucian's. So it's very important for us, I think, to use even more of it. It's a food, actually, with lots of nutrients and so on. Minerals and I'm just thrilled with the way students and other people have taken this, made cakes out of it, you know, ice cream and so many products that can be used. So I think in terms of the health benefits, the professionals, the experts have told us, the nutritionists have told us that sea moss is very good for us, okay, and I want to encourage everyone to use even more sea moss because food really is part of the equation which we must recognize adds to longevity, adds to healthy living, adds to good life and it's important to understand the role of food please in our lives and the importance of food for good health. So World Food Day is always a very important day and I'm pleased that we are focusing on sea moss because of the tremendous opportunities sea moss presents, sea moss presents us with so many opportunities for food and different kinds of food. So World Food Day is very important and I'm happy to be here to celebrate with the ministry of agriculture and so on. What a wonderful job you have done today. I'm very happy. While there are still significant disparities in food supplies, access to food and food affordability, the Agriculture Ministry's goal is to ensure that the entire nation has a safety net in place to guarantee adequate food is available for all citizens to live a healthy life. So World Food Day, since the founding of that organization in 1945, we have commemorated World Food Day in celebration of its importance to food and hunger and food and nutrition security globally. We recognize the inequality in food supplies and access to food and food affordability. So therefore it is fitting that we reflect on the strides and progress made towards those goals especially the sustainable development goal SDG 1, zero hunger and it is in that light that we strive to achieve and attain those goals and the theme this year is leaving no one behind and St. Lucia aims to leave no one behind and ensure that there is a safety net that is spread around and cast for everybody, inclusive of everybody, that they receive the adequate portions of food required for a healthy and quality life. What the ministry has been strategic in its approach, you would have realized generally that we are trying to increase local demand and reduce on the food import bill. Earlier in the year we held our banana festival in terms of seeing what can be done with the fruit innovatively. So you would have seen products like banana cake, banana paper and the like. Then we went to our mango festival and the same was done inclusive of catalogues of both of these products and of course now CMOS. CMOS is doing quite well economically in St. Lucia averaging this year over 7 million dollars. So it is important to focus on CMOS, promote CMOS especially quality CMOS in keeping with the standards that is expected for us to export CMOS at this time. So CMOS is big for St. Lucia and we want to ensure that it remains in focus and on the table. I have personally gone through all the tents and the response is tremendous. They are happy with the support that the Ministry of Agriculture has given to CMOS and CMOS promotion. Also we have system support agencies like Export St. Lucia there to help in the promoting of CMOS and other agencies to help with other aspects. So in that light they are most pleased with the support and the turnout today. The CMOS Fiesta according to the Agriculture Ministerable Alfred Prospect is part of the Ministry's mandate to achieve the sustainable development goal too of increasing food security by ensuring that the public consumes local healthy foods. Well World Food Day is a UN activity and every year we know around this time 16th of October we celebrate that day and the name food tells us every nation has to eat. Every nation is dependent on food but more importantly availability of food, nutritious foods that will all result in a healthy nation, a healthy population. So today I'm very excited and very happy to see that we are hosting a CMOS Festival as part of World Food Day and some people may ask why CMOS? CMOS is also a very important diet, it's very nutritious but more significantly it creates a big impact on the rural population. We know currently we are more than 400 persons involved in the production of CMOS. We have about 65 persons who are directly involved in the export of CMOS. It is a growing industry and as I said it is very very important for the rural populace and our ministry considering the importance and value of this sub-sector in the agricultural sector we thought it was a very good activity today to really bring them together and I just went around visiting the booths and I saw the many byproducts that are produced from CMOS. I saw the soup, I saw the gels, I saw the drinks, I saw the creams, I saw the spices. My concern is a lot of them are still operating from their home but they have not taken the products to the next level where all of what or if not most of what we see there it would have been good for us to be able to go to the supermarket shelves or to the small shops and be able to access them but I can tell you from my discussion with them there are challenges in terms of the branding, in terms of the the marketing and other challenges in the financial resources because if we have to really benefit from the value added from those byproducts we need to take it to the supermarket shelves and then consider export so I would like to see the soups and all the other products that I viewed there in terms of what I saw a while ago take it to the next level and that is where the ministry, the government, understanding the value of that our government, the SNL and Labour Party government approved $300,000 to assist the CMOS farmers with promotion, marketing, branding but we really want to get the order entities of government to come in like Bureau of Standards, the NARAF facility to be able to test those products and to ensure that we have a brand a brand of products that can be sold outside of St Lucia and that would help our country in terms of value added the impact on the livelihoods of the rural population the persons who have to depend on it for support our families and you know most of the production of CMOS starts from traveling all the way to La Brea so that doesn't imagine the amount of people who are actually benefiting from it and our government is really concerned about it but what we really want to see is more processing of the raw material we have been told that our CMOS has gone as far as Dubai and it has become very popular in a lot of other island countries in the world we need to take advantage of it, we need to capitalize on it there's a lot of fragmentation in terms of the various prices the quality and so on we need to work on it I have been engaging the CMOS associations in recent times finding out what are the concerns but I really want to see more processing more byproducts being developed from the raw material and today is really a starting point for us to see what are the byproducts of CMOS and how we can take it to the next level with the support of government with the support of the ministry and all the stakeholders coming together to create that brand that we can see it's solution made products from our CMOS a country that is producing the best CMOS in the world so I'm very excited today I see we have quite a number of persons displaying their products and I really hope that the event today given the very good weather that we are experiencing now I'm hoping that as part of World Food Day 2022 this activity today will be insignificant for us to really push this industry and to ensure that the livelihoods of our farmers in the industry continue to be very continue to see a positive impact and for us to be able to gain value from the products and to really get into the processing aspect of it to really get it on the supermarket shelves to get it in the stores so every time we walk we can say can I get some CMOS gel we know we can get it in the supermarket shelves and people from outside can say okay I need to get it where can I get it this is what these industries are about and I'm hoping that we can continue to work hard get together with everybody all the stakeholders coming together and to make it happen yes and food security as we all know have always been focused on ensuring that our country is moving in the direction that we should be heading in terms of our food security we are working on a strategy although I I'm hoping that it can come out soon but a strategy and action plan for food security industry is very very critical and I'm hoping that CMOS as we know will be one of those components that will really boost our food security drive we know CMOS the value in terms of the nutritional value and all in terms of health we must see and will continue to see CMOS has been contributing immensely to our food security drive in terms of not just producing the raw material but all of the good things the byproducts that can come from the raw material these are things that we can eat these are products we can drink all of that will and will continue to help us achieve our food security agenda for CMOS there are there are a number of challenges in the ministry not just the ministry our farmers our fishers our CMOS producers all of those persons who are making a contribution towards food security there are challenges of climate change for example we didn't we it's a natural phenomenon and we have to deal with it we have to put measures in place to build that level of resilience to the agricultural sector so the impacts of climate change will be less we also have to understand that it is one thing to say let's push and increase our food production but our farmers needs the market the markets must be consistent they must be able to get a good price for the market we need to bring a new technology into the sector and i always say we have to change the way we do things we have to think begin thinking outside of the box because the entire world is changing and so to answer your question i believe that our ministry must have targets in terms of how are we going to reduce our food import bill what percentage of our country we think should be climate smart agriculture so we can deal with the whole issues of climate change and so on what support are the farmers do we give to the farmers the fishers the persons in the seamos industry the honey sub sector the poultry sector what sort of support we can leave them as a government because at the end of the day we want to reduce the cost of production but we also have to look at what new technologies that we can bring into the sector to encourage our young folks our younger people to come in and to say now i have seen a change in this sector things are a lot easier to be done because you have a lot of machine that can do a lot of things that manual labor will be required to do what can we do now is the time i can come in and i also want to see more investments in agriculture i want to see the private sector getting involved in the in the agriculture sector and invest because this is the pillar of our country without food our country will not be able to survive and i know we can see that we are doing well so far but i believe there is still a lot more to be done and so it's a challenge but we have to head in that direction to achieve our goals of reaching our food security targets and ensuring that we are self-sufficient in what we grow we have to encourage people to grow what they eat and to eat what they grow