The Ministry of Agriculture in collaboration within the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), recently held a Presentation entitled “Antigua and Barbuda’s Food Systems Assessment.”
The presentation was made by FAO’s Consultant, Lestroy Grant.
Before his presentation, stakeholders and senior staff within the Ministry of Agriculture were addressed by Minister of Agriculture, Hon. Samantha Marshall and Permanent Secretary, Colin O’Keiffe.
Dr. Govind Seepersad, an FAO Team Leader dealing with the Food Systems Assessment for Barbados and the OECS also joined the meeting.
He is also an Agricultural Economics Professor at St. Augustine UWI in Trinidad and Tobago.
Minister Marshall spoke of the timeliness of such a meeting as for way to long, Agriculture has not been given the spotlight it deserves.
She said that this presentation was only a portion of the vast amount of work that has to be done and sighted key areas where more focus needs to be placed.
“There is a lot more work we have to look at in terms of how the structure of the ministry can better support our farmers, planning ahead and being more proactive as opposed to being reactive in some of the circumstances.”
Minister Marshall continued, “How do we engage more with our farmers and really look at the overall picture of developing agriculture on a whole?”
The agriculture said that going out into the field and engaging the farmers, helps to provide a better understanding of the issues they are facing and pledged to continue doing more of this with her senior technicians within the ministry.
Minister Marshall further encouraged farmers to fully embrace government’s initiative to drive entrepreneurship in Antigua and Barbuda.
She that they should take advantage of programmes like the Entrepreneurial Development Fund as a further step to boost national development.
The agriculture minister urged farmers to treat agriculture as a business just as important as any other and it’s time that it is viewed as much more than just a ‘stop a gap.’
“So if farming is the area, we are asking persons to submit your proposals, come to the ministry, we would work along with you, but it has to be a perfect opportunity for you to be able to develop yourselves in an entrepreneurial environment,”
P.S O’Keiffe said that the meeting held was very timely as it has far reaching health, economic and cultural implications.
“As we improve the quality of our food, inevitably, we improve the health of those who consume this food. Better health enables a more productive society because with improved health, Antigua and Barbuda will reduce its focus on grappling with the impact of high incidence and high prevalence of NCDs and shift towards an increased focus on productivity,” P.S O’Keiffe stated.
In the meantime, in making his presentation, Grant said that the ultimate objective of this initiative is to develop a policy framework for Antigua and Barbuda specific to food assessments.
This project according to Grant does not only involves Antigua and Barbuda, but other OECS Countries and Barbados.
Grant said that he was pleased with the response to this very important session, as the participants were frank in sharing their feedback with respect to the challenges being faced in the agriculture industry and possible solutions.
”The objective of agriculture is for us to know our positive attributes and our negative attributes to optimize the situation.”
The FAO Consultant said that he would like to see agriculture move upwards and compatible sectors working together can help. Reference was made to tourism and agriculture complementing each other- one sector producing the food while the other consuming it.
He lists consistency along with timely delivery of requested quantities as good practices that farmers can maintain to help build the agriculture sector.
He said that agriculture being viewed as a business is where the change is going to be.
“Please let’s view agriculture in its entirety,” Grant insists.
According to Grant, the ministry has competent human resources for the agriculture industry to do well with firm support from political directorate.
“The political directorate has the ability to create what we call the economic investment climate for anything, they have that power and I dare say, we need to work as a team to get agriculture up and running.”
He said strategic approaches can help to further increase agriculture’s contribution to the GDP as has been done in the past.
“Agriculture is a business and you have to know what you are strong at. In Antigua and Barbuda, we have what we call the economic and ecological advantage for carrots, onions sweet potatoes and pineapple.
As I’ve said before in my deliberations, we have to conform to the value chain system of production which involves aspects from pre-production to transportation.”
He noted that Agriculture is a multidisciplinary operation and a ‘think tank’ providing critical support to the minister in the implementation of projects and programmes to transform the sector is crucial.
Four dimensions identified in developing the policy brief for the Food Systems Assessment are Food Security, Nutrition and Health, Biophysical and Environment,. Socio economic and Territorial Balance.
