A graduation ceremony for the 2020 Farmer Training for Region Six was convened Monday.

The training is one of the outputs of the “Enhancement of the Efficiency of Production and Distribution Supply Chains in the Fruits and Vegetables Sector” Project, also called the seven crops project, which has the overall aim of reducing the food import bill.

The six-week course focused on a variety of topics including good agricultural practices, pesticide use and management, production scheduling, post harvesting, technology and marketing and record keeping.

Representative of the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA) in the Eastern Caribbean States, Gregg Rawlins encourages farmers to continue to strengthen relationships with one another.

“The success factors will be the extent to which you work with each other. You have to network and share with each other. The information gained in training shouldn’t just be held by farmers who have experience. It is very important that farmers share information among themselves, that they network and support each other, and most importantly that they work together,” said Gregg Rawlins, IICA Representative for Eastern Caribbean States.

Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Agriculture, Barrymore Felicien, in highlighting the importance of ensuring farmers adopt the good agricultural practices learned, noted that the training is in keeping with the theme for World Food Day 2020 “Grow, Nourish, Sustain Together—Our Actions Are Our Future.”

Participant, Farmer Alex Faucher, expressed gratitude on behalf of the farmers to the Ministry of Agriculture, region six, and the Taiwan Technical Mission for the opportunity presented.

“As a young farmer, I have acquired a substantial amount of information from this course in terms of good agricultural practices, post handling, record keeping and I could go on and on. I immediately put what I began to learn into practice, and now I am confident enough that if anything may be wrong be it soil wise or pest wise, I have the knowledge needed to resolve it.”

Monday’s graduation ceremony for Farmer Training for Region Six saw 63 farmers receiving their certification.