Efforts are continuing to set up a Chamber of Agriculture for the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) with national chapters in each OECS Member Country. The French Embassy in Castries has been supporting the process and assisting the OECS Secretariat in pursuing that goal. A chapter has already been established in St. Lucia and more recently, in September 2007, the Dominica chapter was launched.

To this end the OECS Secretariat sought the assistance of the French Embassy in convening a meeting of the Dominica and St. Lucia chapters as well as the Chambre de Agriculture of Martinique. This was to formulate plans for a Strategic Alliance between the Martinique Chamber and the OECS Chapters in Dominica and St. Lucia. The meeting held on Wednesday November 7, 2007 in Martinique identified areas of collaboration in building organizational capacity; training; strengthening and harmonizing the agriculture health and food safety systems to meet the challenges of international trade; transportation; and other support areas through the agricultural cooperatives.

The Presidents of the chapters also signed a letter of intent as a precursor to a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU), which will formalize the Alliance, which will define the details of activities and plans for implementation.   

George Alcee, Agriculture Economist at the OECS Secretariat views this Strategic Alliance as an initiative, which can yield significant benefits and returns for the economies of the Member States: “We need that strong private sector involvement and lead in agriculture. We need that consolidation of private sector effort to partner the public sector in the development of the agribusiness in the OECS. . We need to get that private /public sector collaboration to help reposition agriculture to better contribute to the growth and development of the economies of the OECS countries.” 

Alcee adds that there are international donor partners who prefer to deal with private and public sector entities such as an OECS Chamber of Agriculture rather than working with an individual entity: “There are international donors who would like to direct their efforts through one group. Hence the need for an OECS Chamber of Agriculture, which will be made up of all private sector entities such as suppliers, people involved in production and other professionals.  Once the kind of integrated arrangement exist in one unit  where input suppliers know what the producers need and the producers know what the marketing entities need as well as those who facilitate the process, then agriculture development will become more holistic with a deepened sense of collaboration and cooperation. So once we can consolidate our efforts and develop the necessary strategic alliances within an OECS Chamber of Agriculture, we are on our way to developing and transforming into a new paradigm for agriculture in the OECS.”-Alcee