Israel is ready to assist Barbados with agricultural technology and also strengthen bilateral ties.
Non-resident Ambassador for the State of Israel to Barbados, Itai Bardov, paid a courtesy call, via Zoom, on Wednesday, with the Minister of Agriculture, Food and Nutritional Security, Indar Weir.
The discussions centred around several key topics of mutual interest. Foremost among them was the urgent need to address the challenges posed by climate change to agricultural production. Both sides acknowledged the vulnerability of Barbados’ open-field food production to the impacts of climate change and deliberated on potential technological solutions to mitigate these effects.
Minister Weir highlighted water management as a pressing issue and indicated that Israel had completed a similar project already. “You [Israel] did a project at Bath in St. John, which helped us to run water to the farmers back in the day when we had sugar cane and that worked with other projects. There is still a pipeline there, which we can look at to see how we can exploit the usage of that for the farming community in that area. And then look at modern growing systems, agri-food systems that are available to us now,” he stated.
Ambassador Bardov highlighted water management and the shortage of water and noted that “the development of high value-added crops for food security with greenhouses and hydroponic is needed”, and Israel could provide the know-how, technical assistance, and finance.
The two officials also discussed Black Belly sheep, Agrotechnology, production of strawberries and other berries and emergency storage.
Other officials at the meeting were Honorary Consul to Israel Scott Oran; Director, Business Development of LR Group, Joseph Haim Harrosh; Director of Caribbean Affairs Israel Embassy, Sharon Farhi Benyi-Bauer; Permanent Secretary Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Nutritional Security, Anthony Wiltshire; Deputy Permanent Secretary, Ethnie Bellamy-Weekes; Administration Officer, Greggann Clarke and Foreign Service Officer, Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade, Shireifa Joseph. Barbados formally established diplomatic relations with the State of Israel on August 29, 1967.