– Pres Ali commissions water catchment project in Barbados
President Dr Irfaan Ali, who is in Barbados for the Agro Fest exhibition, and Prime Minister of Barbados Mia Mottley, on Saturday visited the site where the Guyana-Barbados Food Terminal will be built.
The facility will be constructed on seven acres of land and upon completion, will accommodate 45 containers and a multi-purpose facility.
The terminal will be located at Lears, St Michael, Barbados. During the tour, Guyana’s Agriculture Minister, Zulfikar Mustapha; Tourism, Industry and Commerce Minister Oneidge Walrond, along with Barbados Minister of Agriculture, Food & Nutritional Security, Indar Weir and other technical officers from both countries were also present.
“The food terminal to be constructed on seven acres of land will boast a multipurpose facility to accommodate about 45 containers, cold storage and packaging, and processing plants. The area will also have a large reservoir for water storage and land set aside for crop production,” a statement from the President said.
The President’s activities on Saturday also extended to helping Prime Minister Mottley officially commission a large water catchment – the Brown’s Pond Catchment – in St Philip. A water catchment is an area in which water from rainfalls can be collected to be carried away by a single drainage system.
President Ali and Prime Minister Mottley also cut the ceremonial ribbon and unveiled a plaque. Minister Mustapha, Minister Walrond and other Government officials from both countries were also at the event.
During the ceremony, President Ali praised Mottley for having the “forward-thinking vision” to invest in the “transformative project”, which he said will increase the productivity of farmers and enhance their ability to be sustainable while Barbados and the Caribbean move towards food security.
“The pond has the capacity to store more than six million gallons of stormwater and will provide water to farmers during periods of drought,” a release from the Office of the President further explained.
Cooperation
While he was delivering the feature address at the opening of “Agro Fest” on Friday evening in Bridgetown, Barbados, which is being held from May 28-29 under theme: “Greening Together Ah Caribbean Thing”, President Ali had spoken of the Guyana-Barbados Food Terminal initiative.
The initiative will see the two countries seeking to address the hurdles of transportation and logistics in the Region and is not only aimed at helping the movement of products and reducing the cost of local produce but also providing the opportunity to access new markets.
“It is aimed at developing an important transhipment hub for food here in Barbados to move on to different hotel chains in other Caribbean islands, and to move on to Miami. We must believe that we can do it. We must stop thinking narrowly that we cannot achieve these things… We’re setting bold targets. We are working on bold and innovative ideas. At the end of it, it is only bold thinking, bold initiatives, and pursuing those initiatives and ideas that would ensure we are successful,” Ali had asserted.
President Dr Irfaan Ali and Barbados PM Mia Mottley look on as the ribbon for the catchment area is cut
According to the Head of State, the aim is to create a value chain for development in the region. He further dismissed naysayers who are claiming that the region’s plan is too ambitious, noting that there needs to be proactive action by all stakeholders.
There are also plans for Guyana and Barbados to set up Trade and Investment Facilitation offices in each other’s countries. This came about during business collaborations between the Guyana Office for Investment (GO-Invest) and Export Barbados.
According to GO-Invest, this initiative is timely and much-needed as the two countries seek to further develop strategic partnerships between their private sectors. The CEO of Export Barbados had also indicated that his team will be working with their Guyanese counterparts to develop the Guyanese export market for Barbadian products.
They had cited that currently, Barbados exports approximately $25 million worth of products and services to Guyana. Over the next three years, Export Barbados through its collaboration with GO-Invest and the Guyanese Private Sector seeks to move this total to $50 million.
This is all part of the Government’s drive for Guyana and Barbados to strengthen bilateral relations on a number of fronts that will create a win-win model for both nations and boost agricultural production.
Currently, there is a group of young Barbadians in Guyana being trained on shade house development. Simultaneously, Guyana is preparing pre-fab shade-houses to ship to Barbados that will be developed by those trained young people to accelerate agriculture in the island state.
Already, Guyana has benefited from one thousand black belly sheep from Barbados that was launched in Region Five (Mahaica-Berbice) with special emphasis being placed on women and young people to take the lead in this project.
