Basseterre, St. Kitts, August 18, 2022 (SKNIS): St. Kitts and Nevis’ Minister of Agriculture, the Honourable Samal Duggins, is currently in Trinidad and Tobago for the CARICOM Agri-Investment Forum and Expo II, which runs from August 19-21, 2022. The forum is being held at the National Academy for the Performing Arts (NAPA) in Port of Spain, Trinidad, under the theme “Transforming Agriculture through Innovation and Investment”
It is Minister Duggins’ first ministerial engagement abroad since assuming the portfolio of Minister of Agriculture on August 13, 2022. He is being accompanied by Reiner Ferdinand, Agriculture Extension Officer.
The forum forms part of CARICOM’s mandate to commercialise the Agri-Food systems across the region and is an ideal platform designed to stimulate conversations among key stakeholders, such as policymakers, potential foreign and local investors, farmers, distributors, to amplify investments and achieve the vision of reducing the food import bill by 25 percent by 2025.
Some of the key objectives of the Agri-Investment Forum and Expo are to highlight the importance of food security and having a resilient and sustainable agriculture system; to showcase agriculture stakeholders and the advancements made across the sector over the decades; to encourage discussions between key stakeholders in the agriculture sector, both locally and regionally; to create avenues for trade and investment for local or regional producers/entities across the agriculture value chain; to improve local agricultural production, productivity, and value chains in the agriculture sector through shared knowledge and experiences; to encourage the exchange of technology and/or promote investment in innovative technologies to achieve increased availability of food locally and regionally; to enhance Regional Trade Investments and to reduce the dependency on imported food items by promoting local or regional alternatives.
It intends to engage speakers from across the CARICOM States on the themes of Food and Nutrition; Agriculture, Finance and Marketing; Agriculture, Trade and Investment, and Agriculture, Innovation and Technology.
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