 The agricultural sector has been dealing with a number of persistent issues, such as its legal and policy framework, disorganized market structures, and an increase in food imports, which is further exacerbated by climate change, high input costs, and decreased investments in production and marketing. To address these issues, the St. Lucia Marketing Board, in collaboration with the World University Service of Canada, was Caribbean, and the Taiwan Technical Mission recently hosted a national consultation on food security dubbed Can Helen Feed Herself? The consultation sought to reduce the high level of fragmentation and homogeneity in the constraint facing food production and marketing within the agricultural sector. Ambassador of the Republic of China Taiwan to St Lucia, His Excellency Peter Chien-Chien, says access to sufficient amounts of safe and nutritious food remains key to sustainable livelihoods and the promotion of good health, remaining adamant that his government will continue to work with the government of St Lucia and all partners to support food security initiatives on the island. At the beginning of this month, I'm Prime Minister Prosper and I witnessed a MOU sign between the Taiwan Technical Mission and WUSC to outline our joint collaboration of expanding technology to small farmers, developing sustainable and resilient agriculture, strengthening food and nutrition security, and ultimately trying to reduce food import bill by 25% by 2025. And I'm glad we have begun our collaboration in a right and positive way. Promoting food security in St Lucia is more than a matter in a nation and also it's encouraging to see a growing emphasis on this issue. The discussion today is in time to raise people's awareness to recognize and acknowledge the importance of food security and to search for a better solution of the challenge we faced. Minister for Agriculture for St Lucia's Food Security and Rural Development, Honourable Alfred Prosper, says that this latest intervention by the St Lucia Marketing Board, WUSC and the Taiwan ICDF, bringing together all stakeholders of the agri-food industry in a national consultation on food security is timely as the agriculture ministry continues to move discourse in the direction of establishing and implementing agreed upon production action plans while also enhancing strategic linkages between agriculture and other sectors. How could we be importing 1.6 million dollars of food every year in St Lucia and a lot of it is the very same foods that we can grow here in St Lucia? We have a problem and the problem is not a small problem or minor problem it's a major problem that we must address and we should address because I got figures from the statistical unit for the first quarter of 2022 and in the first quarter of 2022 we've imported 260,000 worth of cabbage we've imported 151,000 worth of lettuce we've imported over 200,000 worth of tomatoes can we not grow these commodities right here in St Lucia I know we can and we must make an effort to change that. Minister Prosper continues to underscore the importance of food security to St Lucia saying that increased consumption and locally produced crops is contingent on greater local production the agriculture ministry is at the juncture of realigning institutional, legal and policy frameworks that shape the sector and continues to forge connections between industry stakeholders from the communications unit of the ministry of agriculture I am Anicia Antoine reporting