Agriculture Minister Anthony Smith Jr has detailed a new Framework Cooperation Agreement between Antigua and Barbuda and Venezuela, granting Antigua access to 25,000 acres of prime arable land in Venezuela for crop and livestock production.
The agreement, spanning 30 years with an option to renew, aims to boost local consumption and export capacity while enhancing food security.
Smith highlighted Venezuela’s favorable climate for producing crops and fruits not viable in Antigua, enabling large-scale production to meet domestic and export demands.
He expressed gratitude for Venezuela’s ongoing support, noting its broader contributions to Antigua and Barbuda’s development, including the PDV subsidy aiding elderly citizens.
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Putting local farmers out of business in the process. O well, we can all be waiters and waitresses.
Will the management of the project be under the control of Antiguans and Barbudans or the Chinese?
Projects of this magnitude will definitely require modern technologies and expertise which are lacking in the farming community in Antigua.
Will the foods produced be mostly GMO? Anthony Smith you should produce the entire agreement and not just sound bites with photo ops.
This is such a ridiculous idea and is nothing but nonsense masquerading as an initiative. How does this initiative help the farmers in Antigua and Barbuda? How does it contribute to our food security? Venezuela is seeking outside help to work in agriculture at a time when there is a scarcity of farmers in the country and it is affecting their own food security. They cannot find enough farmers to farm their lands so they come up with this foolishness as a means of boosting their efforts. To send our farmers to farm lands in Venezuela would be an acknowledgement and an admission of lost of faith in farmers and farming locally. Honourable Prime Minister Gaston Browne own farm and its resounding success, Purcell farm and its success and others, shows what farming and farmers can do locally with dedication, the right tools and equipment, some help from government, water and more. We ought to concentrate on building our capacity locally in farming and cease trying to build up other countries. That we were so quick to sign this madness, babble and delusion says a lot about how we view our farmers and farming locally.
Why does this agreement gives off the vibes, of the 1960’s United Farm Workers program between North America and the Caribbean; where, farm workers were given special visas to work on farms. Of course, allegedly, it was plagued with many negative issues, such as, running away, poor living conditions etc.
This seems like a twenty first century version.
A…with the 30 year lease which is a very short time to establish, manage a farm and make a profit knowing how heavily farming is subsidised and controlled by big business, such as Monsanto, Dole, Gates etc.
B…Will the farmers be individuals or families moving to Venezuela? What happens if the program fails?
C…the most important is manufacturing because…
(i)…exporting fresh fruits and vegetables are limited and with Trump threatening tariffs where will the export markets be, the EU, Canada, Africa, Caribbean, China?
(ii)…processing of these foods to give them longer shelf life requires a humongous investment in the machinery and the skilled workforce to manage and operate them.
This bucket has a lot of invisible pin holes and will not even make it out of the well before all of the water leaks out.
Ras Smood aka Jumbee_Picknee
De’Ole Dutty Peg🦉Garrat_Bastard
Vere C. Edwards
Well we had to get arable lands somewhere since our merchant politicians destroyed Dunbar’s lab and arable lands at friars hill to go sell bourgeoisie whites and syrians those lands, so Venezuela giving us some lands to make up, and that will work on our senses to say agriculture is not destroyed in Antigua, white supervision don’t want to see us as independent entrepreneur owning our own farm and food supply.
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