 Hello everyone and welcome to the program, Agriculture on the Move. I am Philip Sidney, your host. Today with me is the minister responsible for agriculture, fisheries, food security and rural development, the Honourable Alfred Prospe. Welcome to the program sir. Thank you very much. It's always a pleasure to be here to discuss matters related to our culture. Definitely, definitely. And of course, if you're a usual smile. Well, that's my Honourable. Recently we were hit by storm bread, which affected the agriculture sector, the banana industry more so 75% and also we had livestock and also the vegetable section. I'm sure farmers are looking for reprieve, you know, where are we now? And I want to say to the farmers that I understand the pain, I understand the concerns. They are going through a period that they would not have expected to go through at this time. And obviously, I mean, we all know at this time of year, considering that our countries within a hurricane belt, this is anticipated. But I want to say to the farmers that we have completed the collection of our data, a report has been submitted to the Prime Minister and we are in a process of identifying where possible the funds can be obtained if possible. And then when we get that, we will be able to, sorry, give some information to the farmers as to what kind of support that we will be giving. But at this time we are not in a position, I'm not in a position to see what exactly will be given, but I do believe that the government that I'm part of, understand the pain and plight of the farmers will provide some support to the farmers in the short term. I also want to mention to the farmers that we just received a supply of 4,000 bags of fertilizer from Morocco, every year Morocco makes that contribution. That fertilizer will be going to the farmers free of charge. Four weeks ago, the same week of Brett, we were able to secure funding in the tune of $400,000 approved by the cabinet to provide fertilizer support, 40% subsidy. That is the third subsidy because remember, we had one in September, one in January this year and we have a third one. But this time this subsidy will be extended, not just to banana farmers, but also to plantain farmers. This time we will also be giving, more than we gave in the previous subsidies, where it was the 25 kg bags of fertilizer, 2 per acre. Now we are going to be giving the 50 kg bags, 2 per acre, plus some nematisides where each farmer will be getting a subsidy of 2 liters per acre. But we have decided to hold back on the distribution of the fertilizer, because we believe that the farmers need some kind of income support to rehabilitate the fields, to replant and to get back into a position where they can prepare a plantation for the next 4, 5, 6 months. So we are seeing that we will wait until the government has decided what kind of support and from there we will determine as to when we will distribute the 400 bags of, 1,000 bags of fertilizer as well as the third subsidy that was approved by the cabinet of ministers. So I want to call on our farmers to just be a little patient, we understand what they are going through, and so as soon as we get information in terms of what level of support we will be providing, we will definitely inform them as soon as possible. I know recently you have travelled, of course, to St. Vincent, Costa Rica. We wanted to know exactly what happened at those meetings that you attended. I'm sure, solution will benefit a lot from that, so can you tell us exactly what were... I was in St. Vincent on the 14th and 14th of July attending a meeting of sustainable marine use, of sustainable use of fisheries. It was basically a meeting that is held every year to discuss issues like sustainable fisheries, the sagasam seaweed and its impacts on livelihoods, the blue economy. So we had this meeting in St. Vincent for 2 days, but the opportunity was available for each country's minister to have a bilateral with the minister, the vice minister of Japan. And so the first day we met and we discussed cooperation between Japan and St. Lucian, what Japan was doing and how Japan was assisting us in terms of fisheries. At that bilateral, you as the minister would be in a position to make a request for funding support in areas that you think that is necessary in fisheries. And that bilateral, I did express our concerns, considering that our fisheries facilities, if not all of them were donated by the government of Japan, but I stress the need for rehabilitation and upgrade of those facilities because after those facilities were established, there was no maintenance plan in place. And just recently, the government of Taiwan contributed 1.1 million EC dollars. And so workers' comments on some of the fisheries facilities like January, we are putting together plans to upgrade the washroom facility in Miku. We are going to do some work in Vufot and Souffre in Hans-Levi Canaries and grow zealot, but I still made a request for assistance from the Japanese in terms of further assistance to upgrade those facilities. I also made a request for training and building capacity in terms of our fisheries, our young fishers, new techniques at sea, some of the new technologies that Japan and other countries are adopting and we are not there yet. And I made a request for some kind of level of support and training for our fishers to be able to go to Japan or Japanese technical people to come down to train our fishers. I also raised the question of our fishers facing this stress at sea. Whilst we are already implementing the vessel monitoring device, I did make a request for more support in terms of how we can reduce in terms of the loss of our fishermen at sea. So that was well taken and also I expressed the whole issue of the sagasam and the buildup of the sagasam and how it can really impact the livelihoods of our people. And they have indicated that they will provide some level of support to us in terms of dealing with those issues. I really, on behalf of the government, I thank them for the work that they are doing in the Shujel fishing port. And they just approved 5.7 million in this financial year to continue the work in terms of grain and so on, in terms of dealing with the issue of the buildup of sand at the end of the port. It was a very good meeting, but from there I flew across to Costa Rica to attend a meeting with ICA, Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture. And it was a 5-day meeting, it was a 40-day meeting from the 18th to the 22nd. And it was a meeting that brought together ministers of agriculture from the Caribbean and Latin America. And as you know, ICA has been a very important partner to us in St. Lucia and you know the work that Greg Rawlings is doing and ICA in terms of collaboration. And the whole focus was building resilience in terms of the agricultural sector, in terms of looking at the impacts of climate change, food insecurity and other areas of cooperation that ICA can really, really establish and develop with the countries. So with the full right, each minister of agriculture to be able to give their vision and perspective as to how they see agriculture moving forward and what role ICA can play in terms of making that happen. Now aside ICA, there was a call for CARI, FAO and other partners to come together to really address this food security crisis. So it was a really open discussion where every minister of agriculture, both from the Caribbean and Latin America, expressed their concerns as to how they think ICA should continue working with the region in terms of dealing with those emerging issues. The last two days was very, very interesting because we were able to go to an institution called CARTI and that is an institution that is involving a lot of research on cuckoo and coffee and livestock but they are also providing a lot of training and capacity building to students in various parts of the Caribbean and Latin America. So areas like agriculture and forestry and climate change and food security. All of that, they are offering those programs on a short-term basis and we failed as ministers from the Caribbean. That was an opportunity for us to work closely with that institution, to be able to share information, to be able to assist our staff in terms of building the capacity and we thought it was a very good opportunity for us to be there. But more significantly, that institution is doing research on the TRO4 disease, the tropical race disease that is put in effect to banana and plantain species in Asia, in Latin America and possibly, you can never tell, you can get to the Caribbean and what they are doing is that they kind of coven this species with a variety of bananas which is what we have. They have identified a new variety of bananas in Brazil that is considered to be resistant to the TRO4 disease but that banana is not of commercial value. You cannot sell it, it has no commercial value because it gives you a small bunch. But they are now working towards using that resistant variety to do whatever they call it, research to build the resistant level of the confendish. So, just like Australia is doing and other countries are doing, they are hoping that we can develop a new variety that will be resistant in terms of the confendish. Now, one of the concerns that was raised in terms of the discussion we have on the TRO4 was that the concern is that the disease started in Asia, so you have it in countries like Colombia and Australia, but it has traveled thousands and thousands of miles from those countries to Latin America, Peru, Venezuela, and they are saying that if it has gotten to those countries so far away, then it is very likely that it can get to the Caribbean very, very soon. And considering the location of Venezuela versus Trinidad, the movement of people between Trinidad and Venezuela and the movement of people between Trinidad and St. Lucia, it is very likely that diseases can get there. And this is why we have already started work as a ministry to sensitize, to increase our biosecurity at our ports, to inform the farmers and to get everybody on board to ensure that we can prevent it from getting into St. Lucia. But on the other hand, if it gets there, sometimes it's already there. We need to be able to ensure that we have everybody on board to put controls to avoid the spread. So it was a very, very good session. We were able to see various agricultural systems, silvo pastoral systems where you have cattle on the same piece of land where you have trees. You know, we were able to visit various ag-small ag-business involving cocoa and production of chocolate and other value, other products. You know, we were able to see a lot of the research that they were doing in terms of coffee production, cocoa production. So it really, really brought us together. And what we recommended was for the Caribbean countries to come together and be able to take full advantage of the opportunities available through this institution, via ICA, CARDI and the other partners, to really, really benefit in terms of our food security, our DNA climate change matters, and all of the issues confronting us in terms of food and nutrition and security. In terms of training, are you saying that we're hoping to get our staff trained through that institution? Yes, I did have a very long discussion with the head of that institution. His name is Dr. Mohamed. He's an individual from Guyana. And what he said is that we are offering sustainable agriculture, courses, agroforestry, sustainable forestry, food and nutrition and security, climate change, a range of short-term courses. And I did inform my peers, as soon as I got into San Lucia Monday, that we need to take advantage of this because our training, our capacity in terms of our extension officers and forest officers and other officers, that would be an advantage. But they are seeing that we need to have a certain number of people for them to be able to conduct the training. So you can have a training of five people at the institution. So what we have done as agricultural ministries to have a discussion for us to be able to identify people from Grenade and the other countries and decide if the numbers are correct. And so we can say, this is the focus now, sustainable agriculture. We are sending people to that. We are sending people for agroforestry. And so it will be an organized form of getting that matter in San Lucia, saying I have four. But then as the only four we have. But they're also offering some of those courses via virtual. So it's also not possible for us to be able to stay in our homes and offices and still do it. But I saw it as a very, very cool opportunity for us to capitalize on and to bring that level of capacity and training for our staff. Great. We'll do for a break. You're watching agriculture in a move. Stay tuned. Don't go away. Motor come. The Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries, Food Security and Rural Development is placing heavy emphasis on the concept of food security and its our prosperity, our future. The Ministry facilitates the development and promotion of sustainable agriculture and food chain systems, the provision of affordable supplies of safe, high-quality nutritious food and efficient services. One of its support programs is in the field of banana production, including the establishment of the Black Sacred Hoker Management Unit, sales and distribution of fungicides and oil at subsidized cost, technical and extension support and market access facilitation. For further information, contact the project coordinator at 725-0444. Welcome back to the program, agriculture, on the movement of course, my guest, the Honorable Alfred Prospe, the Ministry of Agriculture. So the TR-4 we spoke about, which is very, very crucial for our banana industry. And of course, not only banana, we talk about a plant and all the Musa species. I know you've started putting things in place. Can you bring the public up to date as to where we are today? Well, when I got to know the TR-4 and I got to know of its devastating effect and what it can do to the banana industry, I immediately said to my PS and my team that we must take some proactive measures to inform the public. And we immediately set up a committee. The committee is headed by Mr. Winston Elliot of the research unit, together with other persons in the ministry, and as well as the plasper. And the goal and objective of this committee is to really go out and sensitize the public, especially the farmers. Slasper has a very important role to play in terms of biosecurity. At the ports, at the ports, at the airports. And so if we can prevent the entry of that, it makes it easier for us, rather than being able to, rather than allowing to come in and then we have difficulty in controlling. So what the committee has been doing is to engage the farmers. Just yesterday, I attended a meeting of the farmers, NFTO farmers in Laka and I was able to stress the point to them that if there is one time that farmers have to come together now, because this disease is not one like this, but where you can control it. Once this disease found itself in the soil, it's a fungal disease, it will remain in the soil as long as possible. And there is nothing like bananas or anything that will be able to grow there. So I told them that that is an opportunity for them to come together, because it is about a livelihood. I had to ask them to just imagine for the next few weeks, they are observing a trend of the banana trees just getting discolored, and they are seeing signs of that disease. How are they going to survive from there on? And so it was a very good meeting and I must take time to thank Mr. Winston and his team. He has been doing an excellent, excellent job. And I want him to continue doing that because he understands the value of what he's doing. He understands the significance of that industry and he's doing the best he can with the rest of his team. And I'm calling on the rest of St. Lucia to give support. Everybody, this is not just a ministerial agriculture thing or just farmers, but it's about St. Lucia. It's about an industry that impacts the livelihood of many people. And it's an industry that has supported persons in terms of education, development of the country. And so I'm really happy with the work and I'm hoping that this is, we'll never get into St. Lucia and we'll put all measures in place to ensure that it doesn't happen and the industry is secured as much as possible. Definitely. Mr. Minister, you said it was one, two years since you became the Minister for Agriculture. A lot has happened under your watch, but I'm sure you are in a better position than myself to see the successes. Yes, and I'm very happy. And I want to take time to thank, not just myself, I should not, it's not about me, it's about the ministry and the government. You know, and whatever we've achieved in the last two years cannot just be mine. It's the entire staff of the ministry and I want to say a big thank you to all the staff of the ministry for the contribution towards where we are. And I must say, when we came in the banana industry was in a mess and we set up the task force, we went to London and so on. And we resumed exports to the UK, but unfortunately we had to come and it came to a stop because of challenges of quality and the cost of shipping and so on. But it was a very good thing that we did in terms of doing a review of the industry. But I'm happy that we are doing well in terms of the region, although we are not meeting the demand. But that too is important. And I believe a big achievement for us, and I don't say for me, for us, the ministry, is the work that we are doing in wallet. Yes. When I came in, they had already started, but we are putting a lot of infrastructure there. And to really commission what we consider to be the wallet agricultural station, I'm hoping that we can resume commission this place in the next few weeks. So that we can continue to provide the services in terms of what we're doing at Boosie Zoo to the farmers. We are going to have an artificial intermission program. In other words, we help farmers be able to get their stock, you know, livestock and so on. And everything else that comes with it, I think that is very good for the ministry. In terms of the diversification program, the Kuku project cost in 1.4 million dollars that we launched last year. I believe that will help a lot of our farmers focus on the commodity or produce that there is a high market for. At the meeting in Costa Rica, it was just surprising to me that the Caribbean cannot meet the demands of Kuku because there is a high export market. And I hope that places like Trinidad will be offering 20,000, 20,000 per pound of Kuku. So there's a high demand for it. And I believe that's an opportunity for us to be able to take advantage of it. In terms of fisheries, we saw the approval of the fisheries policy by the cabinet of ministers. We also saw an amendment to the Arigatou Antoinette Act where we provide opportunities for our fishes and farmers to be able to buy all the products that were not in the previous act. We can see that we have been given attention to the fishes in terms of the fad material. We have identified and procured material for nine fads and we are going to distribute those fads to the various fishing communities to assist them with the fishing needs. We have been installing the vessel monitoring device for the fishes. We launched the second phase of the seven crops program. We just launched a new project, Climate Adaptation Fund, costing 9.6 million dollars that we're going to various forms of agriculture and support for agriculture. We have been given a lot of support to the CMOS farmers in collaboration with Exponse and Lucia. Thank you, Exponse and Lucia, in terms of drying tables and flutters. You know, a number of projects we have done and I wish I could have speak to a lot more. The subsidies on fertilizer, 9,000 bags of fertilizer, you know, in terms of support to our farmers and most subsidies to come, they will give farmer support in terms of the 4,000 bags of fertilizer from the Moroccan government. I mean, just receive another 4,000 bags this week. So we've been doing a lot and I want to continue that trend to be able to impact the lives of farmers. The new technology in terms of the small tillers and other cultivators that we brought into the sector through the time on this program. It's just a list of them that I can't remember everything but I'm really happy where we are but I believe we can do a lot more and there's a lot more agro processing in terms of support. We had the banana festival, we had the mango festival, we had the CMOS festivals, you know. So we had a number of festivals that really helped showcase a lot of what the people are doing in agro processing with bananas before our foods and I know we have more of these to come here. The farmer's markets, there is a lot that has been happening but I'm still on scene that we need to do a little more and I'm really concerned about agricultural insurance because agricultural insurance is important for our farmers. Not just for our farmers but the entire sector. When you have agricultural insurance there is less dependency on government to compensate farmers and fishes when they are impacted by a natural disaster and this is one of the things that really, really is close, that is really close to my heart in terms of reaching out and making sure that we can provide that for these farmers. There's a lot more we have to do than we can do. You know, we want to be able to push agro-ponics because that is important and the Taiwanese have been giving us support on that. We want to really, I want to see the commissioning of this agro processing facility in Barbano. There are a number of persons who have indicated interest in it and we are hoping that before the end of this year we can see a reopening of that facility because I believe agro processing is very important. The marketing board, the marketing board has gotten a subvention of $250,000 this year and I'm sure that will go along with assisting the marketing board in buying more from farmers and paying farmers on time. Farmers with disabilities receive a $10,000 allocation this year from the government. So we have gotten a lot done and there's a lot more to come. There is food and in the honey we have done quite a lot in the honey. We have the government has advocated money to assist the honey farmers and there is this big project which is soon to be implemented. It's a World Bank project in terms of looking at food insecurity in the sum of $10,000,000 that has to be spent in one year. U.S. $10,000,000 U.S. which is 27, about 27 million E.C. to be spent in one year and that is all about most of it will be spent in the agricultural sector. So we'll be looking at fertilizer support. We'll be looking at support to the fishers, livestock, bring new breeds of livestock in New Zealand and Russia and a number of things that will really help transform the sector. So I'm very excited, I'm very happy and I must say I'm very proud of the ministry. I'm very happy for the support of the cabinet of ministers, my team in the ministry and everybody who played a part in allowing this ministry or forcing them in this ministry to be able to speak of these achievements. But moving forward, how would you want to see your legacy in the ministry? Yes, that's a very important question. I believe that as a person who worked in the ministry for 44 years not as an agricultural officer but as a forester, there is a lot that I think we can do. I believe what is important for me is to leave the ministry knowing that I have made a big contribution to the sector as the minister responsible for that sector. And I believe what is important is to ensure that the farmers understand that this ministry understand or understood this rule in terms of the level of support that is needed for the farmers and so the farmers will feel that they understand the plight, we understand the significance of the rule in terms of food production and how critical it is for food security and feeding ourselves. I believe if the farmers can see that this minister, this time between 2021 and whatever time that they can see that this ministry did what was needed and the farmers were able to benefit from it and in turn, the farmers produced what was necessary coming out at a level of support. And I believe there is still a lot to be done. Our extension nurses need to be a lot more present and give that kind of technical support to the farmers. But what I really want to see is the farmers saying we are getting the support from the ministry and the ministry saying the farmers are doing what they have to do to take care of our food security for our country. Great. Well, you're currently under the program. Thank you very much. You said a lot. But I wish you success and I know you will get the support of the ministry and staff ensuring that, you know, we reach our goals as we move forward. Thank you again for being here. Yes, thank you very much. You've been watching Our Reculture on the Move. I want to thank you for viewing the program and I want to, of course, my guests, our minister Alfred Prospe, for what he has done thus far. And there's a lot to come. Trust me, there's a lot to come. Thank you again for viewing. And remember, Our Reculture is our business and eat fresh, St. Lucia's best. Thank you and goodbye. Our Reculture on the Move. Our Reculture on the Move. Our Reculture on the Move.