For 30-year-old Ired Etienne, farming is much more than a livelihood; it’s a passion cultivated from the time he knew himself. Yet as Saint Lucia’s government bets on hydroponics to revive agriculture among young people, Etienne represents both the promise and pitfalls of this high-tech move.
Minister for Agriculture Alfred Prospere insists the sector’s survival hinges on engaging youth like Etienne. “The senior persons are on their way out, and we need to attract the young people,” Prospere urged at this week’s Cabinet briefing, championing hydroponics as a gateway to modern farming. “We can only do that by introducing new technology [and] innovations.”
Etienne, though intrigued, tempers enthusiasm with realism. “I’ve seen that it has advantages and disadvantages,” he said in an interview with St Lucia Times. The advantages are that plants don’t compete with weeds, and you can control nutrients directly. But he is cautious about the system’s limits, wary that too much or too little sunlight can ruin a harvest.
Last month, Prospere’s ministry opened the doors of the Agriculture Innovation and Entrepreneurship Facility in Union, Castries, which features a hydroponics system. The shade houses are designed to grow leafy vegetables like lettuce without soil, and the site will double as a learning hub for school-based assessments and agricultural training.
Three students from the Sir Arthur Lewis Community College are already working there, and the minister hopes many more will follow. “I want to see a lot more young people get some level of training via this facility,” he said. “And also to encourage those young people who are doing their agriculture projects… to use the hydroponics facility to be able to get that interest in agriculture.”
The minister highlighted the affordability of hydroponics, as systems can be built for $5 000 to $10 000.
Yet Etienne worries the cost could shut out those without access to grants or subsidies, and even if they are available, this assistance could be distributed unevenly.
“Even if they say that they’re helping, it’s not everyone,” he says. “Maybe they will assist, but with all those things, sometimes it’s who you know and who knows you. For a normal person coming into farming, it could be very hard for them.”
Prospere credits Prime Minister Philip J. Pierre for championing the initiative after a 2023 visit to Guyana, where similar projects thrive. The minister hopes the Youth Economy Agency will fund expansions, enabling unemployed youth and women to launch their own systems.
“It’s a very good system that I want to encourage… because there are tremendous, long-term benefits to be derived not just by the young people but the country as a whole,” he said.
Despite his caution, Etienne says he would gladly embrace the chance to try hydroponics. “If I get a chance to at least experience something different, experience another way of cropping, another way of farming, I’ll happily do that.”
For him, every innovation carries a lesson. “It is a great initiative,” he said. “Every new challenge that comes within the agricultural sector is an opportunity to learn. We’re living in an advanced world too… everything is changing according to rhythm.”
