Gov’t to establish school gardens at primary, secondary schools – Hutchinson
MONTPELIER, St James — The Ministry of Industry, Commerce and Agriculture is to embark on a drive aimed at having school gardens established at all primary and secondary schools across the island.
“So we will now be getting on board school gardens in all primary and high schools,” said minister without portfolio with responsibility for agriculture, JC Hutchinson, in his address during the opening ceremony of the 33rd staging of the annual Montpelier Agricultural and Industry show in St James on Easter Monday.
The move, he said, is aimed at getting more young people involved in agriculture.
“The other thing that we want to do is to encourage the young people, those at the learning stage. We want to encourage them to go into farming. Because, those of us, as older persons are coming out and we find that the young persons are not really interested in going there [into agriculture].
“The school gardens are ones where we will be providing the fencing for the garden. We will be providing the inputs such as fertilisers, seeds, spray, and we are also going to make sure that we provide them with a black tank, so that we can have drip irrigation going to these school gardens,” explained Hutchinson.
He stressed that the gardening programme will not only be for the benefit of students, but also for farmers living in close proximity to the schools.
“We are going to encourage RADA (Rural Agricultural Development Authority) Extension Officers to use these school gardens as demonstration plots for the farmers in and around the schools where they also will be able manage and take care of those school gardens,” Hutchinson said.
He also indicated He through a partnership with the Ministry of Education, all primary schools will have a breakfast programme in place.
“Roughly 35 per cent of the students who come to school, come to school without breakfast. And what you find is that by nine, ten o’clock, their brain gone dead. They are unable to learn to the full capacity. So we want to make sure that we have in place a breakfast programme whereby these students can come to school and be able to get a breakfast,” said Hutchinson.
