Ambassador Fletcher Presents EC$ 5.5 Million Agriculture Project to the International Fund for Agricultural Development for Funding. Grenada’s Ambassador to the European Union, Stephen Fletcher, sought funding for a major Agricultural Project from the 32nd Meeting of the Governing Council of the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) held in Rome on February 18 – 19th, 2009. The “GRENADA COMMERCIAL AGRICULTURE DEVELOPMET PROJECT” was presented to Ms. Josefina Stubbs, Director of IFAD’s Division for Latin America and the Caribbean. The project was given immediate favourable consideration, with the Director promising to move expeditiously to providing all the necessary support for its implementation. The project is an EC$ 6.0 million crop production enhancement, market and price guarantee joint venture between the Ministry of Agriculture and the Marketing National & Importing Board. The project consists of three components: a) A price and market guarantee scheme under which guaranteed prices will be offered for the production of specific crops through a contractual arrangement with the MNIB, b) A working capital and term loan facility to provide credit for those contracted farmers requiring additional financing for the development of their production enterprise and c) An Agri-Business Information system to provide access to information related to commercial agriculture by all participants and Beneficiaries d) A training component that will seek to provide all participants with business and business related training. The Department of Technical Cooperation at the Ministry of Finance, Energy and Planning is following up with IFAD to ensure that the approval and implementation of the project is expeditiously executed. The Governing Council of IFAD is the Fund's principal governing body having full decision-making powers. It consists of all of IFAD's Member States and meets annually. It is attended by the official Member State Representatives, i.e. Governors, Alternate Governors and any other designated advisers. Ambassador Fletcher attended in his capacity as Alternate Governor. Grenada’s Governor is Honourable Denis Lett, Minister of Agriculture. In addition to meeting with and presenting the project to Dr. Stubbs, Ambassador Fletcher also met with the newly elected president of IFAD Kanayo F. Nwanze of Nigeria. The Ambassador encouraged the President – Elect to visit Grenada at the earliest possible opportunity, and to make the vulnerability of Small Island Developing States (SIDS) a priority issue on his agenda during his term in office. Ambassador Fletcher also met with delegations from other countries, with whom he is seeking to build relationships and mobilize development resources for Grenada. He described his attendance at the meeting as “informative and very successful”. Additional Information: The International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), a specialized agency of the United Nations, established as an international financial institution in 1977 as one of the major outcomes of the 1974 World Food Conference. The Conference was organized in response to the food crises of the early 1970s that primarily affected the Sahelian countries of Africa. The conference resolved that "an International Fund for Agricultural Development should be established immediately to finance agricultural development projects primarily for food production in the developing countries". One of the most important insights emerging from the conference was that the causes of food insecurity and famine were not so much failures in food production, but structural problems relating to poverty and to the fact that the majority of the developing world’s poor populations were concentrated in rural areas. INSIDE GRENADA NEWS