 With a goal of strengthening the livestock sector and capitalising on opportunities for economic and rural development, the Ministry of Agriculture has received consultancy services from the Cultural Development Bank to develop a livestock master plan. The plan includes the direction of policies and strategies, creating a roadmap to improve livestock production in St Lucia. At the validation meeting, the consultants were able to present the research completed to department officials. According to the Livestock Consultant of the St Lucia Livestock Development Project, Claudia Thompson, the researchers concluded that the farmers in the sector faced challenges with housing, production costs, transportation and storage. They are aware of these things but they seem that they need assistance, they need some external intervention to actually do some hand-holding and take them through with regards to improving their production so that they can satisfy the market because what we're trying to tell them is that number one, traceability is important, number two, consumer health is important. The consumer has to be assured that this is wholesome healthy meat and they will buy the local meat. They have an appreciation, chefs have an appreciation for fresh meat and this is one of the things we were advocating for capacity to develop a number of chefs in the island that will help the construct of how meat is marketed and consumed in St Lucia. Chief Veterinary Officer Dr. Charmin Melville Edwin notes that the livestock sector has great potential for expansion in terms of advancing towards national food security and sovereignty. She explains that the research results reinforced the importance of establishing a meat processing facility to improve the capability of the livestock sector to meet the international standards needed to expand the sector. If you realize from today's session that is a major component that is needed in order to develop our livestock sector. A meat processing facility is absolutely fundamental towards implementing proper food safety requirements to meet consumer demands, consumer confidence and to meet many standards in the sector. You need a meat processing facility to ensure that you have proper processing facilities, packaging facilities, storage facilities, transportation facilities in the livestock sector. So a meat processing facility is critical to the development of a livestock sector. How can we speak of of increasing production of animal products, increasing production of products like meat, poultry, beef and so on if we do not have a proper facility or structure to process that product to ensure that the animal got slaughtered in hygienic sanitary conditions. The Chief Veterinary Officer reaffirms that the country's food security and farmers livelihoods remain the top priorities as the Ministry of Agriculture works to improve the livestock sector in St Lucia. From the communications unit of the Ministry of Agriculture, I am Anicia Antoine reporting.