Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit has called on governments in the region to take actions and decisions to help transform the agricultural sector.
He was delivering remarks at the opening ceremony of CARICOM Agri-Investment Forum & Expo in Guyana on Thursday.
“The actions and the decision to help transform agriculture and give farmers that comfort and that confidence that they so need, is within our hands and I think we need to, as part of the process of advancing this very lofty and welcomed initiative lead by the President of Guyana of which I am in total and absolute support of,” the Prime Minister said.
He said the actions which need to be taken should be itemized and taken.
“Because if we are to allow CARICOM – our ordinary folks – to feel that they are part of an integration process, especially our farmers and fisherfolk, they must be able to benefit from that process.”
According to him, Dominica can supply the region with a wide variety of products at affordable prices and safeguard the health of the region.
“All of the extra regional imports of agricultural produce with chemicals in it is what is causing a lot of the health problems in the region we have today,” Skerrit stated.
He pointed out that there is a high rate of obesity in the region caused by the foods people consume.
“We are scared of Covid-19, but we should be really scared in the Caribbean of diabetes and hypertension,” he remarked. “So this initiative is not only about economics, it is also about the well-being, the welfare of every citizen in the Caribbean region.”
Meantime, the Dominica prime minister is encouraging regional governments to purchase agricultural produce within their country in order to benefit farmers.
“We, as a government speak about helping farmers, but in the process of attracting jobs in the tourism industry, we give concessions to these hotels to import food from outside the region,” he explained. “Can we not address this and say let us first buy from your country and that which you cannot find in your country you can find it from a brotherly or sisterly country within the CARICOM?”
The YouTube video of the opening of Car-forum can be viewed below. PM Skerrit’s address is at 2:13:08 on the time code.
Great news:
– Dried Bay leaves will no longer be imported into Dominica
– Orange Juice will no longer be imported into Dominica
– Mango Juice will no longer be imported into Dominica
– Tomatoes will no longer be imported into Dominica
– Cabbages will no longer be imported into Dominica
And the list of agricultural produce that is grown locally will begin to sell quickly. Let our agricultural sector boom again and our farmers will have money in their pockets.
Does your concern/interest include the multiple tons of Topsoil from the Airport excavation being recklessly dumped?
My dear Prime Minister, you do know that CARICOM is older than me and you! So if it has not yet been able to achieve the basics that you are highlighting after all this time, My God, then you are describing complete, total and abject failure on the part of all CARICOM Heads of Government, and there I must agree with you!
Did you really say that, “Because if we are to allow CARICOM – our ordinary folks – to feel that they are part of an integration process, especially our farmers and fisherfolk, they must be able to benefit from that process.” Really after all those years of CARICOM you all still dreaming and cannot implement!
And as for you, Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit, you are the leader destruction of Agricultural and Agro-processing industry in Dominica, so please try to listen and learn instead of always trying to be seen and heard talking nonsense!
“The actions and the decision to help transform agriculture and give farmers that comfort and that confidence that they so need, is within our hands”(Roosevelt Skerrit).
What a bunch of rubbish!
What type of transformation is he talking about? When he is not going to take Dominica to the next level, he was going to transform Dominica, what is the difference in the words transform, and going to the next level?
One of the same I suppose. The rest of the Caribbean economy does not depend on Agriculture, they have other resources, unlike Dominica which economy depends on the sale of passports.
The only comfort one can give farmers where it pertains to the kind Agriculture produce is a market for such which are nonexistent; there are no international market for Tanya, Yams Dasheen, ect. The Banana market is limited; all of the Windward islands Guyana, Venezuela and the rest of the South American nations are planting the same crops; Trinidad to some extent too.
So, if one believe that there is market for the type of Caribbean agricultural produce in question; they are disappointing themselves.
Some are of the opinion that there is a food shortage in the world, therefore Dominica and the rest of the Caribbean with the kind food we eat should fill the gap.
The fact is when a food shortage is talked about in the modern world, they are implying grain products, such as Rice wheat, Barley, Corn and a large variety of Beans. For those of us living in the United States, Canada, and England when we go to a Caribbean National store where our kind of food are sold we don’t find a crowed of white people there buying our local food, its all Black people from the Caribbean, some Africans, and other South American ethnicity’s.
The time Roosevelt took talking crap in Guyana, about he brought two farmers with him: one is his personal friend, and the other did not vote for him, he might be asking the more intelligent minister, what can he do to…
So-called workers comidians wish they had a great leader such as Superior and high quality Dr. Skerrit, Ha Ha Ha suckers take the bait!!!!
What a beautiful speech coming from Prime minister Dr.Dr Skerrit. That is why ugly Lenny, and his lollypops is blue with envy of Mr. Skerrit, superiority high ranking status, Mr Skerrit, is love and blessed by God 🙏🏽and the people of the Caribbean and beyond.
This “STOOGE” went to Guyana embarrassed himself and the entire Dominican population and the rest of the Eastern Caribbean by extension; bro you and your Cabal were the ones who placed Agriculture on the back burner (least you forget “if not CBI what”) talking your garbage about “you is a farm-ass too”; bro bring back our $4 billion place it in the treasury and other local banking institutions and make it accessible to the real farmers, so they can improve the economy and their livelihood, and also purchase the boats you promised to buy them for transporting their produce; otherwise just like you said “go to hell! go to hell! your fancy talker.
Yours truly destroyed the banana industry so he could enrich himself by selling passports out of his office for hundreds of thousands a pop. There needs to be an audit by the United Nations investigators of his overseas bank account to see how much money that should be in the Dominican treasury is in his personal bank account. He continues to blow hot steam like the steam from his electric power plan on the mountain which he has been saying for 20 years will soon be operational.
Was he the one who promised the Farmers $1.00 for a( lb) of banana?
Roosevelt lecturing regional leaders about boosting agriculture production is the same as Satan moralizing on about good behaviour..
This shameless impressionist has gutted the agriculture sector instead of subsidizing this very important sector, and make it more productive.
How can a man who cares so passionately about agriculture allowed over two thousand fruit bearing plantain trees to be bulldozed by his administration? Actions speak louder than words. God put a curse on those who wantonly destroy food and His creation.
That’s the way he is!
Always trying to be smart, how can Roosevelt lecture prime ministers of government who are much more academically educated than he is; how can a man who’s country is the poorest, the most back place in the Caribbean lecture the leaders of nations who’s economy far surpasses that of Dominica?
The man is an ignorant clown, a laugh at to the rest of officials in the Caribbean!
Time will tell, with the sting in which the Tortola Premiere (Chief Minister) was arrested, his case might be over in Mimi, he entered into plea in order to shorten his sentence, the result is sealed, though information he gave led the FBI to St. Kitts.
They were in St. Kitts Recently.
Who knows; could Roosevelt name be sealed in information he gave to the FBI?
Hear a joke nuh. Just before Skerrit came up to speak, the female MC who introduced him to the podium said “…our next speaker [Skerrit] HAS a thriving banana industry in his country…..”
Check out the utterance at the 2:12:40 timestamp in the video.
Now where did she get that idea from? Thin air? CARICOM speechwriters?
If only all you knew what they say about all your PM abroad when all you can’t listen. All the saints in heaven have nothing on him.
These CARICOM misleaders’ meetings are just talk-shops to lavish praise on themselves and bamboozle the gullible and ignorant. Lauding Roosevelt for an industry (banana) that he personally assassinated shows how misinformed and factually misleading they can be.
The agriculture sector in Dominica is not even a shadowy figure at what it was before Roosevelt’s ascendancy to his present position.
The entire Caribbean region will be shackled to doom and misery for as long as these present crop of misfits, crooks, shady characters remain at the helm of political power.
Man you said it right, they saw straight through that Clown. Kamar.
Skerrit !!!!!!!! you should be a shame of yourself ,man you have the gull to stand before those leader’s and talk agriculture. You laugh at farmer’s you ridicule them, you said if is not passport is what ,you tear gas the Salisbury farmer’s for standing for their farm road’s you could not even describe what is agriculture, you saw Mr Louis, Randy , Mr Telemague and Mr Dilloney in the crowd your got goose bums you never thought you had to stand before leader’s , who ask there people to plant plant plant food because the world need food skerrit you look like a fool in the eye of every DOMINICAN’S what a baammm shame. Man you are the biggest Clown in the Caribbean. Hilary should stand in the crowd and tell the world what you did to the Salisbury farmer’s when they stood for their farm road’s and what you said if is not passport is what. MANNNNNNN you a too much, that guy is some thing else . You are a JOKER.
Stop lecturing other leaders about what they should do about the agricultural sector. Repair the dilapidated Salisbury feeder road, then you can talk.
I support you a 100%
Why does this man Skerrit, who has lost the last ounce of credibility some time ago, subject the citizens of Dominica and nowadays even an international audience to his cheap propaganda and usual nonsense. After all, it was him that killed a once flourishing agriculture in Dominica and now he pretends to be the new agricultural prophet that rose from Morne Daniel.
So the double doctorate dude has finally realized the importance of agriculture to his vision of the”next level”, so much so that he had to go to Guyana and talk. But talk is cheap. All we’ve seen from his government for the past 20 years is putting funds in the bank for farmers to access without any structure to assist them to obtain necessary inputs and getting rid of the fruits of their labor. Every main agricultural crop in America and the developed world has some organization to assist farmers to sell their products so they can focus on doing what they do best, which is to produce. We also saw the cabal deliberately favor laborites to receive inputs provided by friendly organizations to assist in the strengthening of the agricultural sector. How can Skerritt call for the removal of phytosanitary requirements which are meant to keep pests and diseases at bay for profitable and sustainable agriculture to persist. Reasons why technocrats should have been there.
So doc doc what up with the only thing you know passports? This guy cannot be a leader. Dominica is a gig for him- can’t wait until this misfit goes about his business. Pappy show….. did you notice at the opening they did not address Skerrit as Doctor as they did Dr. Mitchel?
What a clown, you had over 22 years to do this. After hurricane Maria was the best time to reset the sector all the millions of aid, free money. But no just dipping all your hard it treasures money. Don’t worry them people in Guyana can see straight through you.