Agriculture Minister calls claims of lands being given to Chinese, “Nonsense”

The Minister of Agriculture, Lands, Fisheries and Barbuda Affairs, Dean Jonas, has again dismissed all claims that the Chinese will be given agricultural lands.
On OBSERVER AM yesterday, Jonas addressed the criticisms regarding allocation of land to the Chinese and said, “I have said so in Parliament, and I have said so publicly: the Chinese are not getting any land out of this or any land in agriculture. No agricultural land the Chinese are getting at all. Not now, not ever! Not gonna happen! Saying that, and pushing that nonsense – it’s not true!”
The government has seemingly scrapped the controversial deal that would have resulted in 2,000 acres of land being made available to a visiting Chinese team for the purpose of agriculture production.
The government, in particular the Ministry of Agriculture, has received a barrage of criticism from all sectors in society regarding the Memorandum of Understanding which was signed last year with the Chinese-based Yuan Longping High-Tech Agriculture Company.
At present, it would appear that things have changed as Jonas provided an update on the agreement yesterday.
Specifically, these new criticisms are associated with the launch on Thursday 14th March of a training program for farmers under the government’s agreement with the Chinese.
Meanwhile, Antigua and Barbuda has been selected by the Cuban government to launch a pilot program on animal husbandry.
According to Jonas, Cuban doctors will arrive on the island soon to help improve the quality of the animals here.
“What the doctors are going to be doing here is to help us improve on the quality of our animals, and as you know Cuba is right on top. Its education system is the foundation upon which it has built its entire agriculture sector, and they have food security in Cuba right now and our aim in Antigua and Barbuda is to have food security as well, so we are going to be leaning a lot on them to accomplish this,” Jonas explained.
The term animal husbandry refers to the branch of agriculture concerned with the production and care of animals, to develop desirable traits in the animals.
He said Antigua and Barbuda currently imports a lot of meat, most of it of poor quality. Thus, the Agriculture Minister is hoping that the Cuban doctors can provide techniques to improve meat quality and promote self-sufficiency.
Jonas is expected to attend the official launch of the program in Cuba this week.