The annual Caribbean Week of Agriculture (CWA) enters its final day in the
Bahamas today with an eight-member team from Antigua and Barbuda in
attendance.
Caribbean Week of Agriculture 2023 is being held under the theme ‘Accelerating
Vision 25 by 2025.’. The Caribbean Week of Agriculture (CWA) was
conceptualized by the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture
(IICA) as a facility to place agriculture and rural life on the “front burner” of
regional integration activities and in doing so enable: the key decision-makers in
the public and private sectors to better acknowledge the importance of agriculture
and rural life to the economic, social and environmental stability of the region;
and for the major stakeholders in agriculture and related sectors to have an
opportunity to dialogue and forge a common vision for the repositioning of
agriculture and the enhancement of rural life.
The Antigua and Barbuda delegation to CWA comprises Permanent Secretary,
Sandra Joseph, Director of Agriculture, Gregory Bailey, Senior Plant Forestry
Officer Adriel Thibou, Liaison Officer, Events, Marcelle Freeland, Chief
Veterinary Officer, Dr. Tubal Edwards, Plant Protection Officer, Dr Janil Gore-
Francis, Veterinary Officer, Dr. Chere Kellman, and Director of the GARD Centre,
June Jackson.
The CWA is the premier event on the Agriculture calendar in the Caribbean
Region. It is convened under the aegis of the Alliance for Sustainable
Development of Agriculture and the Rural Milieu (‘The Alliance’). From the
inaugural meeting in 1998, the two main collaborating agencies were IICA and the
Caribbean Community (CARICOM) Secretariat.
In 2002, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the Caribbean
Agricultural Research and Development Institute (CARDI) joined IICA and
CARICOM to establish a core group that functions, as the Secretariat of The
Alliance. Since then, the four agencies have collaborated on the management and
logistics necessary for the convening and servicing of meetings of The Alliance, as
well as the myriad of activities during the CWA.
Antigua and Barbuda has mounted a booth at CWA where on display are several
agro-processing products.
