Friday scoffs at joint venture agriculture initiative with Venezuela

Opposition Leader, Dr Godwin Friday has slammed an announcement by this country’s Minister of Agriculture, Saboto Caesar, about a joint agriculture initiative between St Vincent and the Grenadines and Venezuela as “nonsense.”

Speaking on NBC radio last week, Minister Caesar outlined that a joint initiative has been entered into where 25,000 acres of land in Venezuela have been made available for Vincentian producers for joint investment. Caesar, who signed the agreement earlier this month with his Venezuelan counterpart, indicated that the lands may be used to cultivate food or rear animals.

In response to a caller to the New Democratic Party’s New Times programme on Monday, November 25, 2024 who dismissed the minister’s pronouncement, saying that Vincentian farmers cannot speak Spanish, Dr Friday said what was put forward by Minister Caesar “is nonsense masquerading as some initiative.”

“That is such a stupid idea,” Friday stressed.

He said that the proposed joint venture with Venezuela does not offer hope to local farmers, and wondered how the idea will help agriculture in St Vincent and the Grenadines (SVG).

Friday further stated that “no farmer in St Vincent and the Grenadines is going to Venezuela….“Venezuela is not a land of opportunity now,” he pointed out.

The NDP leader spoke of a recent visit to the Marriaqua Valley, where he listened to the many challenges which local farmers say they face.

“I will be a prime minister for the farmers of this country,” he declared, reiterating that his party has agriculture as one of the pillars of the economy of SVG.

Identifying challenges such as poor feeder roads and praedial larceny, Friday said he wants farmers to know “that we have their backs.”

He said the situation relating to praedial larceny is one where the women are now doing the farming and “the men are doing the thieving”.

“We have a comprehensive plan to assist farming as a pillar of the economy,” Friday assured.

Pointing out that St Vincent and the Grenadines is behind its Caribbean neighbours in many aspects, he said SVG is ahead with the rising cost of living and crime.

“We have to deal with that in a more effective way,” Friday declared.