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<\/a>The Organization of Eastern Caribbean State (OECS) Commission on behalf of the Chair of the Council of Ministers and permanent secretaries of the Agriculture Sector.\u00a0 The Sixth (6TH<\/sup>) Meeting of the OECS Council of Ministers: Agriculture, was held on Friday, October 14th<\/sup>, 2022, in the Commonwealth of Dominica.\u00a0 However, due to traveling constraints within the region the attendance was poor.\u00a0 Nevertheless, those who were present or eventually made it were engaged in discussions relevant to the sector. Permanent Secretary (PS) O\u2019Keiffe attended in two capacities which were on behalf of Minister Samantha Marshall and as the chief of staff the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Barbuda Affairs (MAFBA).<\/p>\nTwo meeting were planned, the first was a technical forum in which Permanent Secretaries and Directors of Agriculture presided and participated in. \u00a0The purpose and outcome were to prepare a comprehensive report pertaining to the inadequacies within the Agriculture Sector in the individual OECS states. In addition, a feasible recommendations and solutions were submitted for the Ministers consideration.<\/p>\n
The second meeting was a Ministerial one, with permanent secretaries and Directors of Agriculture were also in attendance as a technical support mechanism and to provide guidance to the meeting.\u00a0 However, a selected Minister presided and chaired that meeting.\u00a0 \u00a0\u201cPermanent Secretaries and Directors of Agriculture attend that second meeting especially because there may be some concerns that are raised in the second meeting that they have to address because they participated in the first one\u201d explained PS O\u2019Keiffe.<\/p>\n
Due to constraints such as regional traveling deficiencies, some ministers were unable to attend and tried to participate via the internet but that too had connectivity challenges that prevented a good flow.\u00a0 The meeting did not reach its fullest potential, therefore discussions and follow ups are expected.\u00a0 Leaving the desired results and outcomes still a work in motion. \u201cThe number of ministers who would have physically attended the meeting while they would have made reasonably representation, it was obvious that there were ministers who were missing, we had the Minister from Grenada, our Minister, the Minister from St. Vincent and they attended online but because of the interrupted connections it was not as it ought to be\u201d, said PS O\u2019Keiffe.<\/p>\n
Although the regional traveling issues were separate from the matters addressed at this meeting there was need for a solution. \u201cBecause of what is going on right now with regional travel, its quite expensive for some to travel within the region from one country to the next to the extent that one who have to leave their country to fly to Miami and fly back in the region in order to get to their final destination or go to another country within the region overnight or spent a day and so it is awkward and cumbersome.\u00a0 That is something we have to look on, I know its not part of the meeting but it greatly affects the meeting and of course negatively impacts regional progress\u201d PS O\u2019keiffe added.<\/p>\n
Ultimately, the meeting had to address several areas decisions had to be made on what could be done to improve Agriculture, how much the region support the use of technology in agriculture, regional trade, active youth inclusion and continued involvement, reliable transportation, working closer with our fisheries sector.\u00a0 These were discussed to a reasonable degree bearing in mind that the needs varied from state to state.<\/p>\n
At the conclusion of the meeting eight (8) priorities were suggested, however this list is subject to change based on other priorities that may surface.\u00a0 Follow up sessions are inevitable but might have to be conducted online.<\/p>\n
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The Organization of Eastern Caribbean State (OECS) Commission on behalf of the Chair of the Council of Ministers and permanent secretaries of the Agriculture Sector.\u00a0 The Sixth (6TH) […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4799","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-notices"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/agriculture.gov.ag\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4799","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/agriculture.gov.ag\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/agriculture.gov.ag\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agriculture.gov.ag\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agriculture.gov.ag\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4799"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/agriculture.gov.ag\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4799\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4804,"href":"https:\/\/agriculture.gov.ag\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4799\/revisions\/4804"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/agriculture.gov.ag\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4799"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agriculture.gov.ag\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4799"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agriculture.gov.ag\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4799"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}