May 6, 2010 … Minister of Agriculture, Lands, Housing & the Environment Hilson Baptiste, has announced a new program, which, has began, the evaluation of the sector, geared towards tackling the constraints of access to water, and limited knowledge of good practices.

Baptiste, says, the program which began just under two –weeks ago, will look at restricted access to water resources, limited knowledge of Good Agricultural Practices (GAP), poor post-harvest practices, low productivity of small ruminant farming and the lack of information on markets and inexistent credit facilities.
To this end, a workshop has been to sensitize extension officers about good practices in the sector and marketing techniques, in order to them to effecting guide farmers.
The minister has also approached, the Minister of Agriculrure, Isrealite Hebrew Community, to assist Antigua Agriculture Sector with water storage and dams restoration.
Isreal, has already effectively assist the Dominican Republic to store water for the farmers, in a sustainable and economical way.

“The Agricultural Revitalization Programme (ARP) intends to develop, test and evaluate possible field interventions in order to assess their technical, social, financial, economic and environmental impact and the conditions necessary for their successful up scaling,” says Baptiste.

He said this initiative will, the minister says, will increase food production by increased productivity and reduced production cost.