'Put some more money into agriculture'- Hon Mather to Premier Wheatley
He stated, “So, while we're feeding the minds of the people in the Virgin Islands, I'm going to be encouraging the premier, as we go through this year, to start investing in the body.”
Hon Mather emphasised that the Virgin Islands possess the resources, such as fertile soil, necessary for developing agriculture in the territory. However, he noted that more investment is required, especially in extension services.
More investment
“We've had extension services over the years where Agriculture [Department] will train, they would have equipment, and agriculture is definitely at the point where it needs more of an investment in our territory, and fisheries,” he said.
He pointed out that fishermen require supplies, such as ice, adding, “I think that sometimes supplying to the individual farmer is very costly to the government, but again, setting up these landing sites where ice is readily available, we will take care of many with one station.”
More public events
Hon Mather acknowledged the government's current investments but stated, “I'm also gonna lend my voice, and I'm gonna agitate the premier here and there as a minister of finance to put some more money into agriculture, so that our farmers can see the investment.”
He also emphasised the need for more public events focused on agriculture.
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19 Responses to “ 'Put some more money into agriculture'- Hon Mather to Premier Wheatley”
Every other Caribbean Island is serious about agriculture and take it seriously, here, it seems that no one in Government gives a &^%$.
Chicken wire and fenced in the sides and top of my crops that I grow in my back yard. I am also looking into getting a small chicken coop with chickens that lays brown eggs. It is so sad that agriculture is not taken seriously. If we don’t take agriculture seriously we are going to regret it.
These dingleberries cannot see the forrest from the trees. The man spoke about tangible investments here LOCALLY within the farming & fishing sectors. He is neither a minister and/or Jr. Minister for said portfolios, however; he has been consistently advocating for structure, policies and frameworks for both.
Some of you are delusonial in expecting him to change what is beyond his control rather than applauding his consistency in pressing the decion makers (ministers) for the change and investments. What have the district reps been saying/doing for their constituent famers and fisher folks?
You are spitting pure BS. The BVI had the land mass for agriculture but people were allowed to set up and build homes and apartments on the farming land. Heard another j@$$ saying the soil is hard in the BVI to grow anything, all you have to do is work and turn over the soil.
everywhere as the new standard that just makes a farmer dependent on the system; which makes them have to keep coming to buy more and more fertilizer each year even though they didn’t buy anymore land. The bvi use to grow so much food it was exported to other islands before conventional chemical dependent agriculture even existed. Stop commenting negative if you never grew anything decent in your life just say that. We don’t want conventional agriculture here. In fact we need to make it illegal as it is poisoning our soil and people are using glyphosate round up along roads and neighborhoods with a known cancer causing carcinogen yet fort garden just allowed to sell it and make money from it. What’s the point of having a DOA if they don’t even do the job preventing harmful chemicals from entering our country and going into the water table. And then inevitably making people sick and ill putting unnecessary burden on NHi and the health care system. But we ain goin talk about how those two topics are most definitely related… so even we island small that doesn’t mean we should just give up agriculture and focus on fishing alone. You madd?? Food security more important that tourism but we focus more on tourism cause addicted to that quick money fix. Too bad majority of it gets sent right back to where it came from we dependent on almost everything from the mainland and other islands. We produce very little compared to our true potential. Everyone rather get that easy quick money than put in the time and work to actually produce something of value while also on the right track to becoming as self sustainable as possible and more productive year after. We need to build soil not rake it or excessively till it in order to make it look pretty and then end up throwing all that yard waste in the dump when it should just be composted right were it lay on the soil. We could start there..