On Thursday September 10^th, 2020 the Ministry of Agriculture and Lands (MOAL) in collaboration with the Climate Smart Agriculture and Rural Enterprise Programme (SAEP) officially launched its backyard gardening program at the Cadrona Home in La Fillette, St. Andrew. The launch was hosted under the theme “Grow. Nourish. Sustain. Together. ”A theme that perfectly embodies the aim of the program.

The back yard gardening program is one of many adaptation strategies acknowledged by the Ministry of Agriculture in its COVID 19 mitigation response plan developed to address the nation’s food and nutrition security in light of the current pandemic. SAEP, in its mandate to promote Climate Smart Agriculture and alleviate rural poverty saw it imperative to partner with the Ministry of Agriculture to achieve a common goal. The overall outcome of the partnership between SAEP and MOAL is to establish five hundred (500) backyard gardens across Grenada Carriacou and Petite Martinique in an effort to strengthen food security at a household level. The launch ceremony also highlighted some support the program has already given to the Cadrona Home’s own backyard garden through the provision of a tank for water storage and watering cans.

In attendance to the launch ceremony were key individuals involved in the development and implementation of the back yard gardening program including the Minister for Agriculture, Hon. Yolande Bain-Horsford; Parliamentary Representative for St. Andrew North West, Hon. Delma Thomas; Programme Manager for SAEP, Mr. Byron Campbell; MOAL Coordinator for SAEP, Mr. Gabriel Clarke among other staff of the Ministry of Agriculture.

The ceremony highlighted the need for the tri-island state to “grow what we eat and eat what we grow” for the health of our nation and the sustainability of our agriculture.