Agriculture Day flooded with smutty entertainment; lacked meat, fruits, provisions and farmers

Published 1 May 2018

Buckie Got It, St. Kitts and Nevis News Source

By: Media Source

Agriculture Day flooded with smutty entertainment; lacked meat, fruits, provisions and farmers

Basseterre, St. Kitts, May 1, 2018 – A former Assistant Secretary in the Ministry of Agriculture is lamenting that this year’s Agriculture Open Day, which marks the 25th Anniversary was “a much ado about everything, except Agriculture.”

“You did a great job at it. If you were looking for more than 50% of the school children in St. Kitts, then you would have found them at the fair on Friday afternoon. A young crowd? They had it. Cars and jeeps on display? They had it. Lots and lots of charts to read-if you had the time- of what COULD be in agriculture? They had it. But they were NO farmers at the Agriculture fair! Sugar Band? They had it! DJ with the most sexually explicit music with children present? They had it! Clothes for sale? They had it. But there were no local agricultural products at the fair. Where were the fruits? Where were the locally produced ground provisions? Where were local agriculture drinks, smoothies, agro-processing products etc? Where was the local meat? Where was the 33% increase in agriculture the PM spoke about in the December parliament?” asked Shez Dore-Tyson.

She further lamented that it appears the success of the fair depended on what one expected.

“For those of us with practical or technical agricultural experience, we were in foreign lands and the extremely long and wordy theme appeared to be a cover-up for the lack of a progressive agricultural policy and the expertise needed to accomplish it. You can see that it’s a duplication of the Virgin Islands annual fair, but remember that the Virgin Islands are not known to have agricultural base economies. We do! Hence though we have always set the agricultural standard for the VI to follow, this year was definitely a reverse,” she said.

Dore-Tyson, who has been transferred from the agriculture ministry to teach at the Saddlers Secondary School, further stated on her FaceBook page that “it is quite obvious that there is no new thinking since people like Ashton Stanley, Jumpin and others left the department. Sleepers cannot turn to leaders overnight. Real Agriculture has become a mere notion in this new government’s “fool the people with bull crap” strategy! We have no farmers, no agriculture policy, no greenhouses, no food for display and no interest in getting it right. Instead they flooded the fair with smutty entertainment to distract attention from the real issue,” Shez Dore-Tyson said.

“I pray that the hurricanes bypass St Kitts this year – again. God knows that this country is on the verge of food security and availability collapse and we seem saddled with frothy leadership that has no clue how to get us out of it,” she concluded.

**All photos are courtesy of the St. Kitts and Nevis Information Service. Only 31 photos posted only one stall with vegetables was posted. Audio promotion by the SKNIS informs of entertainment but makes no mention of fruits, vegetables and ground provisions will be on display.