BASSETERRE, St. Kitts – NEWLY-reappointed Minister of Agriculture, Hon. Dr. Timothy Harris said the sector must move to a market-driven approach if the Federation is to achieve greater food security.
“We have to reduce the food importation bill...a critical step for achieving food security. In a table which displayed some 14 items of food, we saw that in relation to all of them, we had not achieved a 100 percent success rate, the rate being national production as a percentage of national demand. Few of them were even over 50 percent.
“We must go where there is demand. Some of them, we can do nothing about, given our scale and size; but with the resources, we can certainly achieve more across that table. We have to overcome the challenges of cost and seize the opportunities to do more if we want to realise our vision of agriculture contributing to food security, economic growth and employment,” he noted.
Harris was at the time addressing industry stakeholders present for the Agriculture Department’s Annual Year in Review yesterday (Mar. 9) at the Foundation for National Development.
He outlined his plan for boosting agricultural output, which would focus heavily on rewarding and disciplining farmers, as well as incorporating more advanced technology, equipment and farming techniques.
“We still need to measure how many more acres of land will give us the space to provide the numbers we need. We have to find a way to ensure that we’re allocating more land to serious and successful farmers first. There are farmers who received land and did nothing, so we have to show some degree of impatience with those who took land ostensibly for agriculture but do not utilise these for agricultural purposes in good time.
“We also have to bring more green technology into agriculture. Attention must be paid to soil health, access to water and watershed management, and timely land preparation activities. Part of the challenge in agriculture, and in this country, is that for too long we have been doing agriculture the traditional subsistence way – giving it little but expecting bountiful fruits,” the Minister declared.
Having recently reacquired the agriculture portfolio, Harris said he was pleased to renew acquaintances and stressed that he had returned to the ministry with a more “realistic” framework about the potentialities of agriculture.
He promised to constantly advocate for and convey industry concerns to Prime Minister Douglas and the entire Cabinet.
Following the St. Kitts-Nevis Labour Party’s January 25 election victory, Harris, who is the Labour Party Chairman and returning MP for Constituency Seven, was designated Senior Minister and given the portfolios of International Trade, Industry, Commerce, Agriculture, Consumer Affairs, Marine Resources and Constituency Empowerment.
He previously held the Agriculture portfolio from 1995 to 2000.
