Fifth year for Youth Farm Programme

The Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA) in collaboration with the Ministry of Education, Science Technology and Innovation and the Barbados Technical, Vocational Education and Training (TVET) Council are offering an eight-week intensive training plan in crop and animal farming with a focus on the production of diversified vegetables, root crops and herbs for local markets.

 

This Youth Farm Programme is in its fifth year and only thirty students from various secondary schools were fortunate enough to be selected for it; again it has captured the interest of Antiguan students as well.

 

Henderson Wiltshire from the Ministry of Education implored the students to take everything that they can from the programme, as their presence meant that there were other students who had been left out. Furthermore, he informed that the CVQ and NVQ qualifications that can be rendered at the completion of such programmes, will soon be the equivalent of an O Level certificate.

 

Adding to the expected experience was Nicholas Grainger of CaribSave who will also be working with the programme this year. Grainger explained to the students that 

there will be a number of activities which they will be getting involved in; but most of all, there will be the CaribSave challenge which is set to have a favourable prize for the winner.

 

Moreover, working closely with the programme is the Ministry of Agriculture, Food, Fisheries and Water Resource Management. Permanent Secretary of said Ministry, Esworth Reid, in his feature 

address told the students, “I am sure that over the coming weeks, you will be exposed to practical and technical knowledge in various aspects of the science of agricultural production and that by the end of this course, you will come to realise that agriculture is not the gruesome toil of hard work in the hot sun, as some adults may have led you to believe; but that agriculture is a specialised science of growing food.”

 

Added to that Reid outlined that there are many young people from varying backgrounds with a growing interest in agriculture, realising that there are many entrepreneurial and employment opportunities surfacing in this field; ranging from agronomists to veterinary doctors. In fact, he told them that the Ministry is currently establishing a demonstration and training farm on some twenty acres of land at its Graeme Hall Headquarters; and these young people who are excited about this are less concerned about working in the soil and more about the new technologies such as aquaponics and hydroponics emerging in these fields. 

 

According to Reid, these types of innovations along with such training programmes for the youth are necessary to ensure food security and alternative medicine on the island. To this end, he urged 

that the students make the very best of the opportunity being given to them.