Agriculture & Fisheries Marketing Authority Bill being drafted – Dr the Hon Wheatley
Deputy Premier and Minister for Education, Culture, Youth Affairs, Fisheries and Agriculture Dr the Hon Natalio D. Wheatley (R7) made the announcement during the Sixth Sitting of the Third Session of the Fourth House of Assembly at Save the Seed Energy Centre in Duff's Bottom, Tortola, on March 10, 2021.
He said the Bill was prepared and "approved by Cabinet" to undergo final drafting by the Attorney General’s chambers and once the final draft is complete it will be taken to Cabinet for final approval before it is laid in the House of Assembly.”
“I encourage everyone to familiarise themselves with this Bill and weigh in as much as possible,” Dr Wheatley said.
He explained that the authority would be responsible for the re-establishment of what was once the BVI Fishing complex.
“Mr Speaker, you have heard me speak about our intention to establish a statutory body to focus solely on the business and regulations of the agriculture and fishing industries. To this end, we spent most of 2020 in consultation with various groups concerning the establishment of this body,” he remarked.
Repurposed Fishing Complex
Meanwhile, the BVI Fishing Complex will be repurposed to include agricultural products and other value-added goods from local farmers and fishers.
“Fisheries is a priority in the territory’s blue economy, and we recognise the importance of this sector’s sustainability. We are excited about this vision and see this as a necessary step to support our fishing and farming community and other industries connected to these sectors, such as tourism,” Dr Wheatley added.
Back in March 2020, Dr Wheatley had said his ministry was actively considering multiple locations across the territory to build a modern agriculture and fisheries complex. This was after the land that accommodated the hurricane-damaged BVI Fishing Complex was transferred to the BVI Ports Authority to expand its main cargo handling and passenger terminal.
“We now envision an agriculture and fisheries complex that will be equipped to inspect, grade, process and market both agricultural and fish products and which will also serve as a cultural and tourism facility to maximise its marketing capacity and exposure for local fishers and farmers,” Dr Wheatley had stated.
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8 Responses to “Agriculture & Fisheries Marketing Authority Bill being drafted – Dr the Hon Wheatley”
We are currently dealing with a pandemic, but ships are moving across the waters. Let a major worldwide catasrophe occur whereby all shipping is shut down for months. We will soon see and live a reversal of our current life styles. We will see suffering and starvation on a scale never seen before in the territory. We will also see a mass exedus from the BVI. All because we have stop providing our own food. The BVI fed itself from post bondage up to about 1950. Then we drop all that and became dependent on food import, have become complacent, have given no thought to the above and does not realie or even care about the the vulnerable position it is currently in..
Frankly, medicines and food are the greates tools that can be usedagainst us at any given the ruling world class choses. For example, the UK can reduce the BVI to pre 1950 status ina matter of months without firing one shot. Marines would be necesary only to manage the few people that are left and provide some dministrative framework for the recolonialisation. We had better wake up.
Any nation, island or country that depends on another to feed and cure itself is playing Russina roullette. The world's conditions can change over night. Corona has proven that,
Therefore, politicians must stop playing games with people and their money and start proving for their safety and security. It is a damn shame and a travesty that the BVI does not have some semblence of food security after decades of spending millions on such. What went wrong? Think we all know the answers.
I am asking our Leaders PLEASE lets get the FISHING/ AGRI COMPLEX designed and built to sustain us for generations to come and not make it a political "white elephant"------remembering the words of HL STOUTT "where there is no vision "
Farmers and Fisher folk stay abreast to this development and get your business in order SO if we have to get loans to upgrade and improve our output the banks will see WE are serious and are ready to move to the next level