By: Precious Mills
BASSETERRE, St.Kitts– Under the theme ‘ Support Farmers and Buy local’, the vegetable yam was the special featured food on the menu for the 10th annual Eat Local Day held at the independence Square on Friday 30th June.
Dr. Tracey Challenger, spoke to local reporters in her capacity as Director of Agriculture on behalf of Melvin James who was overseas on government business at the time.
She disclosed that she had a yam dish which she enjoyed.
“Last year, we focused on breadfruit, the year before that was pumpkin and now this year, we are focusing on yam. So we have all types of dishes that you can do with yam on sale today. I myself have had a dish, yam pie and it was lovely.”
She said over 250 plates of local dishes was expected to be sold that day.
Dr. Challenger outlined three objectives of the Eat Local Day.
“It is an opportunity for the Department of Agriculture to promote an event that would serve as an outlet for our local produce in the face of free movement, globalization, free trade, there is a lot competition so the onus on us is to come up with initiatives to help farmers that would cushion some of the effects of these global impacts.”
She added: “Secondly, it is about food nutrition, food security; eating local, healthy food.
On another point, she informed that the event is also geared towards promoting some of the activities and projects carried out by the Department throughout the year and previous years as well.
She took the opportunity to mention that the founder of Eat Local Day is Alistair Edwards who was the marketing manager at the time, and presently the Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Agriculture.
She also shared that Edwards was ably supported by his assistant officer Tom Buchannan.
“So with their hard work and with our new marketing officer Shawn Clarke, we are now celebrating the tenth anniversary of our Eat local Day,” remarked Dr. Challenger.