Kingstown, St. Vincent and The Grenadines; Monday February 02, 2016 – St. Vincent and the Grenadines Minister of Agriculture Honorable Saboto Ceasar, has called on policymakers in CARICOM member states, to identify a commodity or commodities for consolidated supply to regional and international markets.
He outlined that; “It is long acknowledged that many of the drawbacks resulting from our individual geographical smallness, can only be addressed through collective and co-ordinated marketing of our produce.”
According to Caesar, the banana model, which consolidated the marketing of bananas to the United Kingdom for over half a century, brought significant economic benefit to the Windward Islands’.
“There comes a time when we just have to face reality as small island states. One of these realities is that there is an urgent need for the OECS sub-region and CARICOM to a wider extent, to set up the necessary framework for collective marketing of our agriculture produce,” the Vincentian Agriculture Minister pointed out to his regional counterparts.
He furthered that, “the commodity or commodities to be marketed must be determined after the requisite technical assessment is done.”
Additionally, the Vincentian Agriculture Minister suggested that regional Chief Agriculture Officers, marketers, and agriculture organizations such as F.A.O., C.A.R.D.I., and I.I.C.A., all have important roles to play in the formulation of the plan.
The Honorable Caesar concluded, that our region’s agriculture policymakers “should not be timid in our quest to advance our agriculture sector collectively, since it is the spirit and intent of regionalism.”
*************************
DISCLAIMER
This article was posted in its entirety as received by SKNVibes.com. This media house does not correct any spelling or grammatical error within press releases and commentaries. The views expressed therein are not necessarily those of SKNVibes.com, its sponsors or advertisers
St. Vincent News