{"id":6391,"date":"2023-05-26T15:41:38","date_gmt":"2023-05-26T15:41:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/agriculture.gov.ag\/?p=6391"},"modified":"2023-05-26T18:57:00","modified_gmt":"2023-05-26T18:57:00","slug":"agri-business-seminar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/agriculture.gov.ag\/index.php\/2023\/05\/26\/agri-business-seminar\/","title":{"rendered":"AGRI-BUSINESS SEMINAR"},"content":{"rendered":"
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On Wednesday 25 May 2023 Courts, Ready Cash Small Business Loans, and East Caribbean Feeds held an Agri-Business Seminar at the George Ryan Conference Centre for farmers and agro-processors in Antigua.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Dr. Tahomma Richards, technical product manager and in-house veterinarian at the Eastern Caribbean Group of Companies (ECGC) was one of the facilitators of the seminar. ECGC is a company in St. Vincent that produces flour, feeds, and rice. East Caribbean Feeds which is a subsidiary of ECGC where they produce feeds for poultry, pork(pig), ruminants and horses, and rabbits. For over 40 years their feeds have made a significant impact on the farming industries of St. Vincent and the region to which they export. These countries are Antigua, Anguilla, Barbados, BVI, Canada, Dominica, England, Grenada, Montserrat, St. Kitts & Nevis, St. Lucia, St. Maarten, Trinidad, and the UK. Here in Antigua, Lee\u2019s Feed is the only distributor of ECS Feed.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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ECGC partnered with Courts to share information as they realize agriculture in the region is a growing entity and they want to take farmers to another level, therefore, Dr. Richards\u2019 presentation showed farmers that they are the owners of the businesses and they need to be creative, innovative and consider animal welfare, animal management and husbandry. She encouraged farmers to grow their businesses and utilize the opportunities that are there to assist them.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Also presenting during the group session on behalf of the Courts Ready Cash Small Business Loans Department was Ms. Andria Andrew, the Microfinance Officer. Her presentation focused mainly on Financial Planning and tools\/ tips to aid in a farming business. Ms. Andrew stressed the importance of record keeping as it pertains to having any business especially farming so that farmers can keep track of their spending. Having a record increases the likelihood of them receiving a loan so that the company can see where the money is going.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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The Director of Agriculture, Mr. Gregory Bailey expressed that the issues of investment in Agriculture in Antigua and Barbuda have always been a problem for the sector. Once financial agencies come forward to express their interest in extending financial support to farmers, the ministry and farmers alike are grateful for the much-needed support. Mr. Bailey explained that partnerships are very important, especially as it pertains to associations on the ground and a partnership between the Ministry of Agriculture and Courts Ready Cash is game-changing and will improve the sector immensely.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Also representing the Ministry of Agriculture, was the Chief Veterinary Officer, Dr. Tubal Edwards who encouraged farmers to utilize the financial institutions that offer assistance which will be beneficial to farmers as they are able to produce better quality and higher quantities of food to ensure the food security and nutrition of the nation.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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The Courts Ready Cash Small Business Loans Agricultural Fund made $20,000,000 available to small business owners that specialize in Livestock, Apiculture, Food and Beverage Manufacturing, Forestry, Fisheries, Processing, and Farming, as well as support services for the sustainability of businesses within the agricultural industry.<\/div>\n
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Hopefully, when similar seminars are held, they will be better attended by crop and livestock farmers as there were more agro-processors present.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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On Wednesday 25 May 2023 Courts, Ready Cash Small Business Loans, and East Caribbean Feeds held an Agri-Business Seminar at the George Ryan Conference Centre for farmers and agro-processors in […]<\/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-6391","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\/6391","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=6391"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/agriculture.gov.ag\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6391\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6396,"href":"https:\/\/agriculture.gov.ag\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6391\/revisions\/6396"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/agriculture.gov.ag\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6391"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agriculture.gov.ag\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6391"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agriculture.gov.ag\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6391"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}