BRIDGETOWN, Barbados, (GIS) – The government of Barbados will be providing 100 acres of land to the youth of this country to reignite their passion for agriculture, thus ensuring the island’s food security and assisting in returning Barbados to its glory days as a hub for agricultural research.
Addressing the official handing over ceremony earlier today for the Hope Agricultural Training Institute, built on 45 acres of land in St Lucy, prime minister Mia Amor Mottley stressed that the government would make the lands available immediately.
Prime Minister Mottley added:
“If you come here and learn well, there will be opportunities made available to you, because that new horizon can only be built by your passion, your commitment and your innovation…. We will take care of the capital…, we will take care of the access to water where we can, but you must take care of the passion, the knowledge and the innovation.
“And with that, I hope we can look back on this day, 10 years from now, and begin to see a clear path of agricultural dominance in our society, affordable and accessible food for our people and an ability to earn from what we grow beyond our shores.”
Mottley stressed that as the island prepares to celebrate its 60th Anniversary as a nation and the 5th Anniversary as a republic, greater participation in agriculture, access to more affordable produce and a change in attitudes about the importance of agriculture and its link to the island’s health profile were necessary.
The prime minister reasoned that the country was grappling with a diabetes epidemic and the island’s health profile “demanded that we get it right” by changing eating habits and reducing the incidence of NCDs.
The prime minister stated that the youth must lead the charge in this regard.
“I believe that this is our time, but it can only become our time if the young people who are here…are prepared to accept it and see yourself as global pioneers, not constrained by the size of 166 square miles, but in the same vein that we produce some of the greatest researchers that have been known to human civilisation….
“We can do so again, simply by applying ourselves and having the combination of partnerships to which I have referred in this speech, making that defining difference to what and where agriculture can go in Barbados in the 21st Century.”
Mottley congratulated the students and told them that they now “stand on the precipice of being able to return this country to a level of greatness in agriculture on our terms, with human dignity and with a recognition that this is at the core of our being able to withstand the climate crisis, the health epidemics, and indeed, the ability to use this as a basis to boost our productivity nationally and to stabilise our country economically and in terms of national security.”
