 Banana remains the main export commodity in St Lucia and contributes significantly to foreign exchange. With a thrust towards improving the productivity and quality of banana production, in order to secure the foreign banana markets, the Ministry of Agriculture has pledged its commitment to work directly with the National Fair Trade Organization to address the issues plaguing the banana industry. Officer in charge of the NFTO Heidi Simon Serier, who was part of the St Lucia delegation, led by the Minister for Agriculture to the United Kingdom last week, highlights the NFTO's inability to continue to absorb the cost of quality claims, incurred due to the substandard fruits being shipped to the United Kingdom and then discarded. Or any little defect that you think may be hidden at one point will manifest itself and it will be at the point where it will cost us a lot more. Growers must continue to engage all workers in the operation of the bananas. So from the deeper to your selector to your packer, everybody must be involved. Everybody who touches that fruit must understand the technicalities of producing that fruit and getting it to the market in one piece. Minister Prosper states that during his interface with representatives from UK-based shipping line Geist Line, he was made aware that the entity will maintain its position for stirring banana trade links between St Lucia and the United Kingdom. But we are also concerned that it takes minimum 21 days for our bananas to get to the UK from St Lucia and we have expressed concerns to Geist to indicate the importance of attempting or reducing the length of time it takes. And if you're going to have a shorter period between St Lucia and the UK, it would make things a lot better for us because imagine three weeks of transport between St Lucia and the UK and approximately five to seven days of the fruits going through the ripening facility. This can pose serious challenges to quality by the time the bananas or the fruits get to the supermarket. Minister Prosper continues to encourage farmers to persevere through the hardships of the current banana industry as his ministry formalizes a strategy to improve the conditions of the banana sector. From the communications unit of the Ministry of Agriculture, I am Anicia Antoine reporting.