The vessel that discharged 40,000 sacks of urea in St. Vincent and the Grenadines took a total of seven days to be completed. The entire process is expected to cost the government over $500,000, inclusive of transportation to various storage sites in the country.
The Ministry of Agriculture’s technical staff ran several 24-hour shifts to be able to complete the offloading within the scheduled time.
Urea was transported to nine sites around the country. Mr. Renato Gumbs, the Chief Agriculture Officer, noted that this will act as a significant subsidy to the farmers. In some instances, it cost the farmer as much as $10 to transport a single sack of fertiliser from Kingstown to their farm. In this case, the government assists farmers in obtaining urea within their agricultural districts. The distribution of urea to farmers is expected to continue during the course of this week.
The Minister of Agriculture, Hon. Saboto Caesar, noted that the distribution will be accompanied by a series of meetings with farmers to be able to activate the targeted production for 2023.
