Scotland District Set To Be Reforested

BARBADOS: The Ministry of Agriculture has embarked on a project to reforest the Scotland District of the island.
This was revealed by Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Agriculture, Esworth Reid, who was speaking at the awards ceremony for the Ministry’s Grow Well School Gardening Competition, on Tuesday at the Lloyd Erskine Sandiford Centre.
Over 200 Cub Scouts, Beavers, Girl Guides, and parents joined with a team of officials from the Ministry of Agriculture, to kick off the Ministry’s programme to plant over 750 fruit trees on crown lands at Haggatts, St. Andrew.
Mr. Reid told the audience: “It is the Ministry’s intention to reforest the whole Scotland District with fruit trees with the hope of making it primarily the ‘Food- Fruit Basket of Barbados’. The planting of trees in the area will also serve to stabilise and conserve the soil since that area is very prone to slippage,” he explained.
The Permanent Secretary was of the view that the involvement of the various youth groups in the project showed that young people were becoming excited about agriculture again, something he believed should be encouraged by their parents, teachers and youth group leaders.
The Ministry of Agriculture has embarked on several projects to bring young people back into agriculture. Among them are the ongoing Youth Agripreneurship Incubator Programme, now in its second cohort, and the recently-concluded Grow Well School Gardening Competition, which was the first component of the Ministry of Agriculture’s Grow Well, Eat Well, Live Well, Right Here in BIM campaign.
The Lodge School was the overall winner of the competition, while All Saints Primary won the most creative garden and first place in the Container Gardening competition.
Hillaby/Turner’s Hall copped first place in the Primary Open Field Competition, while St. George Secondary emerged victorious in the Secondary Open Field Competition. Ellerton Primary took first place in the Cultivation under Protected Gardening category.
aisha.reid@barbados.gov.bb