Students at the TVET School of Sustainable Agriculture and Culinary Arts presented Prime Minister Philip J. Pierre with fresh produce and agro-processed products grown and prepared by the students themselves.
The Prime Minister has for years been promoting the much talked about idea of “growing what you eat and eating what you grow” particularly relevant now given the rising food cost as a direct result of the war in Iran and elsewhere.
Sonia Bispack, who is the TVET Coordinator, believes this TVET program is the way to go to assist with establishing food security. “In the fast-growing world that we’re in a lot of focus has to be on these hard skills. As one of the schools where we are at, we are really trying to get people to buy into agriculture because without agriculture we can’t eat and then agriculture leads to the other area that we do which is culinary arts. So we are trying to fuse both of them and utilize what we have on the farm so that we can feed the nation because, who knows, especially with what’s happening in the world these days we really have to, as we say, grow what we eat and eat what we grow.”
The student recognized that the prime minister had been instrumental in the development of the program and the furtherance of its reach and that the token of was merely to say thanks.
For his part, Prime Minister Pierre was thankful for the gift but was even more complimentary of the fact that many had bought into the idea of his touted mantra. “I want to thank the people who have taken on the ideological shift into vocational education. We hope that it will grow from strength. I want to thank the teachers again, the principal, and ministry of education for moving forward as we continue our vision of growing what you eat and eating what you grow.”