Basseterre, St. Kitts, July 04, 2018 (SKNIS): With a robust strategic plan in place for Agriculture in St. Kitts and Nevis, the Ministry of Agriculture is ensuring that food and nutrition security is maintained as it is an integral part of the United Nations (UN) 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
The UN SDG #2 speaks to ending hunger, achieving food security and improved nutrition and promoting sustainable agriculture. Powering agriculture supports the adoption of climate-smart agricultural innovations and techniques to increase crop yields, improve the energy and water efficiency of farm operations, and reduce food insecurity in vulnerable regions to help end hunger.
“There is a strategic plan from the Ministry of Agriculture 2017-2021. This followed up on one that we had that ended in 2016 and it takes into consideration the acronym FNS, which is food and nutrition security that is a component, a pillar inside there where we have to look and focus on those areas,” said Alistair Edwards, Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Agriculture, while appearing on Wednesday’s (July 04) edition of “Working for You”.
He explained that the Federation implemented a number of initiatives to further strengthen food and nutrition security. One such initiative was the adoption of the Farm to Fork Project that saw St. Kitts and Nevis being the most successful Caribbean country of the three that implemented it as pilot project
“It is looking at things like obesity in children and the spread of non-communicable diseases (NCDs) that we so now talk about… so the programme aims to try to change around the taste buds and the appetites of the young children to get more of the healthy foods and less of the non-healthy foods to them,” he said, adding that because of the Federation’s success of the project another intuition is coming back to continue work on it.
Mr. Edwards stated that the Ministries of Health, Education and Agriculture are working assiduously to play their part in ensuring that all, especially children practice healthy lifestyles.
“This is the drive that we are now working on. This area we are working on particularly for the kids of this country. So we are looking at the healthy foods,” he said. The Ministry of Education is going to try to ensure that the food that we grow is channeled through the school meals and from the school meals the kids would eat it, and the Ministry of Health would want to measure any changes in the health of the kids.”
The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, including the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), are new global objectives that succeeded the Millennium Development Goals on 1 January 2016. The SDGs, which were launched in 2015, will shape national development plans from ending poverty and hunger to responding to climate change and sustaining our natural resources. Food and Agriculture lies at the heart of the 2030 Agenda.
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