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Call for private sector to invest in farming

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Head of the European Union delegation to the Eastern Caribbean countries—the OECS and Caricom—Mikael Barford says the private sector should have a major role in the investment of the farming industry.

Speaking at the Caribbean Agri-Business Forum at Lloyd Erskine Sandiford Centre in Barbados yesterday Barford said: 

“Public funding is very unlikely to be sufficient. Farming is a private sector activity and the private sector should assume a larger role in guiding it and most importantly investing in the sector.” 

He added the agri-food sector and expanding market were very high on the EU priority list in the region for many reasons.

That would eradicate hunger, increase food security, make a growing tourism sector, revive the rural economy and create jobs for the youths.

Barford said the tourism industry, as well as supermarkets, should provide a growing and reliable market for local production.

He said in 2010 the EU had committed more than 70 million euros in supporting producers’ organisations.

Ambassador of the Eastern Caribbean States to the European Union and co-ordinator of the ACP SIDS platform, Len Ishmael, said she would like to see local produce used in the region.

Ishmael represents St Lucia, St Vincent and the Grenadines, Dominica and St Kitts and Nevis.

Ishmael said sugar and bananas were grown in the Caribbean and should be used in the region.

Recently farmers in Brussels lost money and protested by bringing their tractors to the middle of the city, Ishmael added.

“They wanted formal compensation and the very next day the EU announced that they would get 580 million in euros in subsidy.

“So I tweeted poor farmers in the Caribbean have absolutely no subsidy. There is no one they can call on for subsidy,” Ishmael noted. 


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