Guadeloupe agriculture department visit
Trinidad & Tobago

The Department of Agriculture of Marie-Galante will be on a week long visit to Trinidad and Tobago from October 25, 2004. The visitors will include sugarcane farmers as well as officials of the Department of Agriculture. The trip has been co-ordinated with assistance from the Caribbean Conference of Churches regional secretariat in Trinidad .

The Department of Agriculture is an institution aimed at agricultural development in Marie-Galante, and agricultural extension services in the English Caribbean islands. Marie-Galante forms part of the neighbouring island of Guadeloupe.

Every year as part of an incentive to sugar cane farmers in Marie-Galante, the Department of Agriculture offers a competition for the production of high quality sugar cane products. Sixteen of the island's winners get the opportunity to visit other sugar-producing Caribbean countries, to discover the industries and the institutions behind them.

Among the persons and institutions which the group will meet with in Trinidad are the Ministry of Agriculture, Raffique Shah and TICFA (The Islandwide Cane Farmers' Association), the Sugarcane Feeds Centre and the Latour's Beef Cattle Farm in Tobago .