Barbados and Suriname will further strengthen their agricultural cooperation when its Minister of Agriculture, Animal Husbandry and Fisheries, Rabindre Parmessar, visits this country over the next few days to engage in a number of important discussions.
The Minister of Agriculture and Food Security has invited the Minister to Barbados to participate in the island’s leading agricultural exhibition Agrofest, which will be held over the weekend. A number of Surinamese farmers are also expected to showcase their wares.
Minister Parmessar will arrive on the evening of Thursday, February 27, and on Friday, he will pay a courtesy call on the Minister of Agriculture and Food Security, Indar Weir; meet with officials of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry; and deliver the feature address during the official opening ceremony of Agrofest.
The following day, Saturday, February 29, he will plant a tree in the National Botanical Gardens and later join agriculture officials in touring the Scotland District and Greenland Livestock Research Station.
Barbados and Suriname strengthened bilateral relations in November 2018, when they signed the Brokopondo Programme for Cooperation.
To operationalize the programme, the Prime Minister’s Special Envoy to Suriname, Senator Alphea Wiggins, led a mission, which included Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Agriculture, Terry Bascombe and technical advisor on the project, Dr. Lennox Chandler, to Suriname last year.
The officials met with Suriname’s President, Desiré Bouterse; several government ministers; as well as members of the private sector and the Barbados Chamber of Commerce and discussed a number of possible areas of cooperation.
The Brokopondo Programme, under its agricultural component, has the potential to strengthen regional cooperation, especially in the area of food security.
It has three components, namely trading in agricultural produce; utilization of lands in Suriname for farming by Barbadians and providing scientific assistance/collaboration. Barbados and Suriname established diplomatic relations in March 1978.