Newly appointed Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA) Representative, Allister Glean, is keen on helping Barbados develop its agriculture sector, especially in the areas of trade and agro-processing.
This was disclosed during a recent courtesy call with the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade and Senior Minister coordinating Social and Environmental Policy, Senator Dr. The Most Honourable Jerome Walcott, at the Ministry’s Culloden Road, St. Michael location.
Minister Walcott welcomed Mr. Glean to Barbados and expressed thanks to IICA for its support over the years, since establishing an office here in 1977.
The IICA Representative relayed greetings from the Director-General of IICA Manuel Otero and noted that he wished to continue the excellent working relationship of his predecessor Ena Harvey and to have a fruitful tenure. “I’m here to serve the people of Barbados and I would hope that we can collaborate and communicate often,” Mr. Glean said.
The two officials discussed several areas in agriculture including improving inter-regional trade of agricultural products, enhancing agro-processing, the Youth Farm Summer Programme, Agro-Tourism, Api-Culture, Sanitary and Phytosanitary (SPS) measures, backyard gardening, NCDs, biodiversity and its linkages to traditional medicine, citrus disease and monkey pest issue.
IICA was established in 1942 and focuses on those areas that provide technical cooperation, innovation and specialised knowledge to promote the competitive and sustainable development of agriculture in the Americas and the improvement of the life of rural inhabitants in its 134 member states.