Youth embracing agriculture

Minister of Agriculture, Food, Fisheries and Water Resource Manage-ment, Dr. David Estwick, is pleased to see that more youth are getting involved in the agricultural sector and are recognising it as a viable career option.

In his feature address to the graduands of the Youth Agri-Preneurship Incubator Programme (YAIP) at the Lloyd Erskine Sandiford Centre yesterday morning, which was delivered on his behalf by the Chief Agricultural Officer, Lennox Chandler, the Minister stated that the YAIP is one of the initiatives Government has employed to address the challenge of youth unemployment in this country.

“I am always heartened to witness and be part of any event involving young people, which celebrates and highlights progresses in agriculture as these events not only debunk the fallacies that Barbadian youth are disinterested in agriculture, but it also provides a sense of encouragement for other members of the youth cohort of our pop-ulation to consider agriculture as a viable career option,” he said.

According to him, the goal of YAIP was to also increase the number of young people in the sector, as a means of reinvigorating the sector and ensuring its sustainability by reducing the average age of local farmers; a long-standing objective of the ministry, he said. He made the disclosure while noting that statistics at the beginning of the current decade indicated that the average age of local farmers was well over 50 years. With concerted efforts being made to address that, including the YAIP and the Youth in Agriculture Programme, the Minister noted that figure had dropped significantly by 2015, to 38 years and it continues to fall.

“The number of young people present today and those who have graduated before, further represent a cadre of enthusiastic youth that are prepared to enter the sector, which would likely lead to a further reduction in the average age of farmers in this country. My Ministry intends to do all that it can to ensure that the interest of these young farmers is maintained by ensuring that as far as possible, graduates of this programme are provided with the resources necessary to utilise their training,” he said.

His comments came as he commended all those who played a part in making the YAIP a success, as he acknowledged that their efforts were also responsible for some of the successes of his ministry. Estwick then went on to speak to initiatives being pursued within the sector to ensure its sustainability. He said in particular, that the ministry is in the process of reviewing the structure of incentives programme to increase its efficiency and its impact on the sector. (JRT)