 Agriculture Minister Noble Alfred Prosper, together with agricultural development officers from the Taiwan ICDF, on Tuesday engaged with farmers at Union Okid Garden as they participated in a subsidized sale of agricultural inputs. Amidst escalating input costs and various sectoral challenges, Minister Prosper emphasises that the agriculture ministry, via the Serving Crops project, remains committed to implementing incentives aimed at facilitating access to affordable agricultural implements. Today I am hoping that our farmers can take advantage of this opportunity. I am certainly sure it will help boost the agricultural sector to reduce the cost of production because of the fact that they are getting the inputs at a subsidized price. I am just hoping that we transform into an increase in our food production and to reduce on our food import bill. I am also hoping that it will result in us realizing our 25x25 agenda in terms of food security and I am very happy for our industry. Project coordinator of the Serving Crops project, Adeline Yurovik, affirms that the organization will maintain momentum by backing the establishment of a food security framework led by the island's agricultural authorities. According to Yurovik, the subsidized sale of agricultural inputs is just one initiative aimed at directly alleviating the financial strain faced by farmers responsible for producing quality crops for consumption. As you know, inputs are what you put into the farm to get out your crops, right? So right now we are having specialized inputs. As we went along, the farmers requested different inputs from what we originally started with. So now we have extended the range of inputs that are on sale. So we have ground cover this time, different sizes according to your crops with different spacings. Even our drip lines have changed, so our meters are different, so the spacing is as specific to certain crops as compared to just the one size that fits all. So we listened to our farmers and now we understand that as we are changing and farmers are getting more technologically savvy, we are making better inputs available or more relevant inputs available to them. The input sale remains a cornerstone of the agricultural sector as part of a slate of activities aimed at mitigating the impact of the rising costs of agricultural and farming inputs on the island. From the communications unit of the Ministry of Agriculture, I am Anisia Antoine reporting.