The Ministry of Agriculture, Food Production, Fisheries, Cooperatives and Rural Development is seeking to enhance productivity by modernizing the sector using new technologies.

​The Ministry hopes the new technologies will also attract and sustain youth involvement in agriculture.

The sector will receive new equipment through the Youth Agriculture Entrepreneurship Program.

Coordinator for Special Projects in the Ministry of Agriculture, Eden Compton, provided details on the types of equipment.

“Among other equipment, we will soon have a tractor and twenty greenhouses. These will not be just the tunnel shaped greenhouses that we normally have. These are greenhouses that are designed for Saint Lucia’s tropical climate.”

Compton said that participants of the Youth Agriculture Program will receive ongoing training in the use of the new technologies. He explained that as part of the modernization effort, participants were required to prepare business plans.

“We’ve had a few meetings with the SLDB and so we are working closely to see how we can go ahead and submit these business plans, as their previous training required them to prepare their own business plans with assistance from the ministry,” he said.

The Youth Agriculture Program participants can receive up to $50,000 as seed money towards the implementation of their projects.