CARICOM Secretary-Basic, Dr. Carla Barnett, on Tuesday, highlighted the elevated funding governments are allocating to agriculture because the Area strikes to spice up meals manufacturing and cut back its meals imports.
“Because the Area has been specializing in the 25 by 2025 [Initiative], we’re, actually, seeing governments allocating elevated quantities of their budgets to help agriculture. The agriculture ministries have obtained further funding, whether or not it’s funding for extension providers or for coaching. What it means is that our governments are agreeing that we have to do extra to provide meals as a result of in occasions of emergency, we must be, at minimal, capable of feed ourselves,” she stated.
The Secretary-Basic made the intervention throughout an interactive session with younger folks concerned in agriculture on the 18th Caribbean Week of Agriculture (CWA) now underway at The College of the West Indies Open Campus in Kingstown, St. Vincent and the Grenadines.
Ambassador David Prendergast, Director, Sectoral Programmes, and Milagro Matus, Deputy Programme Supervisor, Agricultural and Agro-Industrial Improvement, each from the CARICOM Secretariat, additionally participated within the session titled ‘From Speak to Motion: Younger Folks Championing Regional Meals Programs.’
Representatives from the Youth Advisory Physique led the hybrid dialogue, which centered on creating an enabling atmosphere for youth in agriculture; including worth to Caribbean produce by way of agro-processing; and cultivating the following technology of farmers.
Matus advised the younger people who the CARICOM Secretariat is devoted to selling and supporting the involvement of youth and girls within the regional agricultural sector.
“Our motivation is simple: your views are necessary! You characterize the way forward for our Area. Your technology will step into management roles inside the Group,” she stated.
The Deputy Programme Supervisor mirrored on the seventeenth CWA in The Bahamas in 2023, the place Dr. Barnett known as on the youth to make their voices heard; decide to management and transformation of the agriculture sector within the Area; and create a transparent plan of motion to advance agriculture.
