Institute has plan to revive project
Date: Mon 18-Oct-1993
Paper Page: 18A
Publication: Daily Nation
AGRO-METEOROLOGY will soon be revived in Barbados.
Director of the Caribbean Meteorological Institute, Dr. Colin Depradine, said
the Institute would first need an injection of funds before embarking on a
large-scale project.
Depradine impressed on participants of the Third Caribbean Conference on
Meteorology and Hydrology the importance of weather to agriculture.
"The production of food crops is to some extent dependent on the control of
plant diseases and pests. In many cases the organisms that cause these problems
flourish only in certain micro-climatic conditions," he explained.
Depradine said all these problems fall under the study of agro-meteorology.
Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Agriculture, Ruall Harris, agreed that
this field of study would help solve some problems plaguing agriculture.
". . . There is a significant role for agro-meteorology in helping to
provide solutions to the problem of food production in the less advantaged
regions of the world, especially in the Caribbean," he added.
Harris noted that not all countries, particularly Latin America and the region
were enjoying increases in world food production.